Here's the Winner for Week #4!

I don't know that I've laughed as hard in a while as I did at some of your worst gifts!  One was more ridiculous than another, and I just have to wonder what makes people think some things are good ideas as gifts for anyone. 

In any case, the winner of the fourth giveaway for Christmas in July is:

Caffeine Girl!!!!

Here's what she had to say:

Worst X-mas gift came from my wealthier (former) SIL: It was a children's book about the planets. Clearly from the Border's clearance table. I was 30 and have no special interest in space!

You gotta admit, that's one crappy gift.  Go figure.

Congratulations - from earth! 😉  When you have the time, please send me an e-mail at thekittyknitterATverizonDOTcom with your name, address, zip, etc.  Believe it or not, I may actually get everything into the mail this week - in any case I'll certainly e-mail everyone to let them know when things are on the way.

I have to say that my worst gifts - yes, gifts because there were more than one time I received these - were birthday gifts from a great aunt.  My father had two aunts who were Catholic nuns:  Sister Mary Joseph and Sister Marie Jeannette.  Sister Marie Jeannette was the "fun" one - meaning that she was only about 100 years old (to us, I'm sure she was much younger in her actual life), she was really nice, had a good sense of humor, and seemed to really like kids (which was a good thing since she was in charge of an orphanage).

Then there was Sister Mary Joseph, who had to be about 150 years old, and was everything the stereotypical nun was - old, mean, and expecting everyone to serve her every whim ("What can I say - again, it's your father's family," my mother would regularly remind us).  She never announced visits, just showed up and expected the world to stop for her (I have many funny stories about this, for another time), and even my father would get exasperated with her.  Every year on my birthday she would send me a birthday card.  I LOVE to get mail (still do!), and every year, I'd open the envelope and there would be some kind of religious happy birthday verse on a card, and then inside there would be a holy card.  Which is a crappy gift in and of itself, BUT - when you turned it over, it was always from some dead person's wake!!  She sent me a free card from a dead person who I didn't know's wake Every. Freaking. Year.  When I was really little, I would use them for bookmarks, but after a while, even my father said, "Throw it away if you want to, I don't know what the h**l is wrong with her."  Part of the problem was that I always would expect to open the envelope and find a regular birthday card, and that was disappointing enough.  My sisters used to at least get a dollar bill in theirs.  One of my mother's theories was that she did this because not only was I named for my *mother's* grandmother, and also that Sister didn't like the way my parents spelled my name.  In any case, "death cards" as we called them, were terrible gifts, especially for a kid!

******

The weekend was fine, if uncomfortable.  I did in fact go to my haircut appt on Saturday, and it went really well, and I'm very happy with my cut.  I'll give a fuller report on another day.  I didn't do as much knitting or reading as I'd hoped to do, but since neither is required, it's not like I'll be in any trouble for it. 

Hopefully this will be a good week for all of us - it's July's last chance to impress us, you know ...