Christmas Shopping is Hard

Getting your mom a vacuum for Christmas may not be the best idea. Do dads need another tie? I wasn't sure what to get my parents this year. A vacuum for mom was heavily considered though. There were gift ideas--but iPhones, or paying Comcast to connect my parents' house to the internet were out of my budget range.

Last year I thought it would be a good idea to give them a gift card to a fancy (and expensive) restaurant. The gift wasn't something that they would get to keep until they decide to get rid of it. Rather, it was an experience that they could enjoy in the moment. It occurred to me that I should try that again this year.

So what is something that my parents haven't done? Turns out they have not seen a Broadway show. Calm down--I'm not sending them to New York. But! The Lion King is coming to the Morris next year. Perfect.

I was going to get up at 5:30 tomorrow morning to go stand out in the freakin' cold to get tickets. A radio ad said that the Morris would be opening up the ticket booth to walk ups in the morning for two hours before they open up to phone and internet orders. Fortunately, that plan is cancelled.

In perhaps the only time in my life--a Facebook ad turned out to be useful. The ad said they were accepting orders now--a day before official release with a special code. Well whadda ya know, the damn code worked. Two tickets are now on their way...to my parents house. Crap, I forgot to change the shipping address. So much for a surprise. But hey, it's done!