Practical Gifts

Next week will be my daughter's 17th birthday.  I don't know how she can be that old when I'm so young, but that is another topic for another day.  Anyway, the poor thing is being welcomed into the adult world faster than she wants.  I remember wanting to be a grown up when I was her age, but I also remember when birthdays and especially gifts quit being fun.  Not to say that I don't enjoy the presents I get now, it's just that now they are usually very practical.  Well, to give you some background information, I guess I should back up a few years, well more than a few... Yikes, back to when I was 17.  Yeah, I know, back in the dark ages.  (My kids always ask if I ever had a pet dinosaur.  Funny little sh**s aren't they?)  Anyway, that year I started getting things for my hope chest.  (Sort of fifties-ish, I know) I got flat ware, table cloths, napkins, and tea towels that my Grandma had embroidered.  There were gifts of pot holders, pots and pans, and well, I can't even remember it all.  Then, once I got accepted to Fresno State, I started getting all the items I would need for my room, bedding, towels, small TV, and containers to carry toiletries to the showers.  I mention this because I loved it, ALL of it.  I mean it, I really did.  I was so ready to get out and have a bit of independence.  So now we flash forward to my daughter.  She really seems to be struggling with the transition to the practical.  What brings this all into the open is that we offered to get the windows tinted on her car for her birthday.  She has been mentioning since we got the car that that is the only thing on the car that she really wasn't happy with.  It had an old, poorly done, tint job that was bubbling on the back window and and peeling around the edges of the door windows.  It is so bad that it was a bit difficult to see out the back window.  So when we brought it up that we would like to do that for her birthday and she was hesitant, I couldn't understand why.  Now, my daughter is a pleaser and it took forever to drag out of her that she just felt like it wouldn't feel like a birthday gift.  Nothing to open, can't hold it in your hand, and now of course it isn't a surprise, since she knows what she is getting.  I get all that.  I do remember one year when almost all my Christmas gifts were clothes.  Practical, while it is useful, is not always fun.  I guess I am in the minority about practical gifts.  My husband always asks what I want for Christmas and birthdays and I always say something for the house.  He says, he wants to get "me" something, not something everyone uses.  I just know that I hardly ever shop for me, it is usually for everyone else, so a new crock pot or vacuum is a wonderful gift for me.  Speaking of vacuums.  I do remember one year, I think it was the Christmas before Joel and I were married.  My mom got my dad an axe for Christmas.  I started teasing her about it being a gift that indicated you wanted someone to do some work.  I think I even said, "it's like if he got you a vacuum, he's telling you that you need to clean the house more."  We were all laughing and I couldn't understand why she got all teary eyed.  Until I opened my gift,  and it was a vacuum!  The exact one I wanted!  I guess I do understand how others might feel about the practical, it certainly took me quite a while to convince my mom that I loved the gift and she couldn't have gotten me anything better.  I can really step in it sometimes.  I need to quit trying to be funny.  Anyway, Amy decided that she really would like to have the windows tinted, so today the car got dropped off and she will have an early birthday gift tomorrow when we go pick it up.  Not so exciting, but very practical.