First World Problems

For the third year in a row, I have gotten the same book from both my parents and my brother's family.

This year, in an attempt to prevent exactly that, I set up Google Docs wish lists for everyone aside from me, so we could share ideas and coordinate on what we were getting, so duplicates didn't happen. I was hoping to broadly hint that they should do the same for me.

It apparently didn't happen, because I now have two copies of The Redwall Cookbook. They are going on my shelf next to my two copies of The Raven Boys from last year, and The City We Became from the year before.

Which, well. The Redwall Cookbook and The Raven Boys, my sister-in-law and my brother have a somewhat better excuse for? Since my parents gave me the first copies at my birthday, which they were not present for, and they gave me the second copies for Christmas. But still!

I was even dead certain that SIL was going to get me Baking Yesteryear for one of those, to the point where I didn't bother putting it on my list in hopes of avoiding another duplicate gift, but she got me a book about food and The Resistance (general) instead.

New plan for next year: Stop putting quite so many very specific items on my wish lists, start putting more generalized item categories on it, since apparently that's what people prefer to shop for anyway. (But first figure out what those categories might be.)

Xmas Haul

The actual final tally will be tomorrow, after my parents and I go through our stockings, but otherwise this is it.

( I am, sadly, underwhelmed )

My wish list for the past few years at least has been specific but extensive; my goal was communicating, "I would be happy with anything from this list! It doesn't have to be the most expensive thing! If I even got one of these things from each of you, I would probably be ecstatic!" But A) I guess I wasn't actually communicating that properly, and B) it seems like some of my family members also prefer to start with a more generalized idea to work from rather than picking anything specific. (Also my mom apparently tries to make sure that each person gets at least one piece of clothing every year, which is not a rule I had been aware of previously.)

Next year's plan: Update my wish list to include only a few very specific things, and at least two or three broad categories. Current considered categories: Nerdy/fun cookbooks, fun flannel fat quarters and/or remnants. If I do that and also adjust my expectations (especially with two kids under five years old for the rest of the family to dote on), I think next year should go better.

Hmm

It occurs to me that my current down-in-the-dumps-ness might also be related to my current reading material. Which I am enjoying immensely! But tonally it's on the more tense end of the spectrum of what I enjoy reading these days, and so is my current audiobook, and since my mood tends to be heavily informed by whatever media I'm consuming at any given time...

...I may need to take a break and switch to a comfort re-read.

(Which sucks, because I genuinely do want to read the rest of this book and find out what happens right now. But! Emotional health first.)