A Wish Book Christmas

Do you remember the thrill of the Christmas catalog coming in the mail?  

In our home, we all wanted to look through it when it arrived and the one of us three kids to see it first, always called, "I get it first!" 

And how we did pore over it.  Of course, the first time through we were all obligated to hurry up so the next could have a chance at it, but then we would pick it up randomly all through the six weeks or so until Christmas arrived.  We made out multiple wish lists as we counted down the days until Christmas.

It was lovely, truly it was and I was pleased when Amazon came out with their own little catalog which my grandchildren have pored over and over, just as I did when I was a child.

Well, I'm a child no longer but I dearly love this time of year when a few stores still send out their Christmas season catalogs.  You know the sorts I mean... high end gift shops that sell lovely trinkets or baskets packed full of fruits and assorted goodies, mail order catalogs for furnishings set in beautifully decorated rooms for the season. And just now the internet is rife with beautiful things, too.  Ads of all sorts of gadgets and pretties and practical items I've lived a lifetime without but am sure I could use, or at least someone in my family might use.  Amazingly, most of them I've never seen until the season of gifting was upon us. 

I have looked at and considered the quality of a dozen gold foil wrapped pears packed lovingly in a beautiful box from a high end fruitier.  And quelled at the price tag, too.  I have dreamed of opening an Advent calendar filled with beauty product samples that costs fifteen times what one full sized item might cost.  I have looked with watering mouth at the Dobosh tortes, with longing eyes at the Herend bunnies, the cashmere sweaters, the bejeweled trinkets.   

Reality bites.  Things are a little snug this season.  Two major car repairs, our recent vacation, property taxes, insurance renewals, a bit of holiday overspending at the grocery yet again, charitable donations to really good causes that we can't bear to turn down at this time of year, the bill we'd forgotten was coming due...All on the same budget we've had for five years with a family growing ever larger.  If I let it, it could make for one bleak Christmas.

Pfftt!  That's what I think of it all!

I insist upon keeping the abundant living mindset that I grabbed with both hands in September just before the testing started.  Nevertheless, I'm neither foolish nor frivolous.  I can't spend what I don't have in the hopes that I can pay in January for a Christmas gift today... 

I've seen oh so many beautiful things I'd like to buy for those I love...and quite a few things I'd like to have for myself, too.  It occurred to me that I could make my own wish book, only mine is a listing of websites and photos of items I've saved in a file for later viewing. I call it My Wish Book.  

I'll look at it and dream as I did as a child.  In three months or six, some of these lovely items' prices might drop and I can begin an early Christmas gift stash, or my income might be a bit freer, and I can afford to pay full price for something lovely.  I might stumble upon some of the items at the thrift store where unwanted treasures await a treasure hunter. 

I've realized that at least nine-tenths of what I've been looking at isn't the dozen apparently perfect pears but the gold foil they are gently wrapped in, the pretty colored paper filler in the very nice basket or box; the pretty wrappings on the gifts with real ribbons tied about them.  That's what really thrills me.  And those things I can manage this year.  There's no reason at all why my presents can't be presented in just such a way and at a far lesser cost than those I've been saving in my wish file. 

It's going to be such a lovely Christmas this year!