I'm expanding your vocab in this one.

 I'm a fan of December. I like the cold winter air, except when my feet remain in a frozen feeling that will last until spring. I like the smell of a wood stove burning, even if I hate going out into the damn forest to find burnable wood. I like the mountains covered in snow, there is no except here, those things are epicly beautiful. Spell check says there is no word called epicly. Fuck that, I'm adding it to my vocabulary anyway.

Fuck you, Spellchecker!

Winter is just nice. I used to be a fan of Christmas too, because presents were fucking awesome. Sometimes epicly too. When I was no longer a kid and learned that my parents went into horrible debt so I could have a goddamn Transformer or a new GI Joe, or several video games, I felt bad about the fact that they payed for the gift that I would get them. When I was little (not having a job was the new norm) we had a bazaar for kids to buy gifts. It was cool, ten or fifteen cents for something stupid for my mom and dad, a couple silly things for my grandparents and then something else for my mom's brother. It was easy shopping, taught us kids about money, and the gifts were pretty good for pieces of American made in the 80s crap. I don't know why the Methodist church ended that, because I did my shopping there every year until I was eight, I think.

When I got a job I spent my own money on those gifts, just I bought them from various stores. One year I decided to buy gifts in an incremental scale, someone would get something expensive and then someone got the shaft. I wasn't a complete ass about it either, my sister would get something decent, I got her a set of books one year and thought that just wrapping it in gift wrap was not enough. I taped that fucker shut, with a whole roll of clear plastic tape. I laughed for the whole hour it took her to open that goddamn thing. The next year I got her a gift certificate and put it in a box filled with sand and three rolls of that tape. You can't tell me that isn't funny as fuck. My grandma got a pair of scissors every year, I do not know why but she finally asked me to get something else after twelve straight years. And my grandpa always got a tackle box for his fishing supplies. I never wavered from that, because they were cheap, always there, easy to wrap, and he always needed a new one. I didn't just get cheap gifts for everyone, I got my dad a bitching stereo that he could play his vinyl records on and hook up to the TV for surround sound. The plan was to split that $400 with my sister, but she welched on it (hence the taped asshole gifts) and I fronted that cost myself. Whenever I decided to do the shaft and expensive gifts I would put everyone's name in a hat and just randomly assign a dollar amount to how much I was going to spend on them that year. It worked great when I wasn't fucking poor. Bought my mom a cast-iron dutch oven and twelve inch pan one year, $100 for those was bit tough, and then she used them one goddamn time. They are now used all the time, in my kitchen. But when I went to college and could no longer afford the same amount for gifts I set myself a budget. Fifty bucks one year, and got useful gifts for everyone. It was easy because I only had five gifts to get.

And then the next year I set myself with a challenge. Five dollars, for everyone. Do you know how goddamn hard it is to just shop with five fucking dollars? My family knew I was doing this, so they wouldn't be hurt over getting some gift that only cost a dollar. I got my grandma some gloves that were on clearance, my mom got a set of scissors that were in a dollar aisle of Rite Aid, I don't remember what I got my sister and dad but my grandpa got a glider plane.

I went all out on making him one for his room last year.

A fifteen cent toy from the pharmacy that was made out of balsa wood. My grandpa used to be a pilot and when he opened that present he lit up. He was well into his dementia by then, and we hadn't seen him that happy in years. It was probably the best gift I ever got for him. I had my receipts for the challenge too, I spent five dollars even, with the goddamn taxes. My dad was impressed that I could buy something for everyone with just that amount, and the next year it wasn't. Now, I'm sure that this isn't even possible for just one person. But this was an experiment in the whole, “It's the thought that counts” and it epicly fucking worked.