Oh What Fun!

Today I did the dreaded 'Christmas shop while the boys are at school so they don't see what I get them!'

I had all these ideas, but some just didn't come off, even after checking the specialised shops - shops you'd expect them to be in. I wanted to get the boys a lightbox - you know, a box with light inside it so you can trace drawings easily (great for cartoon drawing). I went to the main art shop in the mall, didn't have them. Went to the haberdashery/craft shop, thought I'd definitely find one there, but no, they didn't. Then I left the mall and went to a high end artist shop, and they didn't either. I even checked out the $2 shop. My next stop was Ebay to see if they have them. They had a few - mainly lightboxes for signage displays, or if they were art-style light boxes, they were a few hundred dollars and A0 size. I just want a simple A4 size battery operated plastic shell with an opaque screen which shouldn't cost me any more than $20. It just isn't going to happen.

The next idea was a world globe. I wanted one which had a lot of cities marked out so we could put little stars on them when we visited a location. I saw some at a funky stationery shop called Typo a couple of weeks ago at a different mall, but I had the boys with me and I wasn't planning to buy it with them. They were $49.95, which was reasonably priced. I was happy to buy it, but when I went to my usual mall today, they only had tiny globes and had sold out of the big ones. So I went to the science shop, and their globes were $80-$300. I really didn't want to go to that extreme, and of course, the cheap one had hardly any city locations and had stupid little pictures of fish, food and flags all over it, something you'd give a 5 year old.

Another thing I was looking at getting my boys, was an electronic kit. I had them when I was younger and I loved mucking around with diodes, resistors, transformers, a soldering iron, wires, motors, etc. I remember making radios, lighting systems (parallel & series), fans, all types of gadgets in basic form. Again, the science shop, where you'd think they would be, didn't sell them. The other renowned electronics shop who used to sell them have just taken them off the shelves after having them there forever (as kids aren't buying them anymore) and the only place you can supposedly get them is from a specialised hobby shop. I've even had my parents searching for them, and they can't seem to find any.

However, after I did still manage to get a few (a few too many) things for them, I decided after 4 hours of shopping (including buying a few things for myself, as no one seems to remember me!) that enough is enough. I came home, put it all on my bed, worked out exactly what I have for each of my boys and decided, really, they have enough. They have plenty, they don't need anymore. They should be more than happy, especially since I had to replace so much for them this year. They know a few things that they are getting, but there are a couple of surprises.

After they came home from school, I had to go down to the post office. I ended up doing a little bit of a check around the village for anything that might be different and I couldn't resist the $1,000,000 US currency note printed on a gold wrapped block of chocolate, about the size of a Hershey bar, to throw in their stockings. :)