Now, I was never one to do Christmas shopping. I would go with Lisa when she was shopping for our kids, but not for our parents or her friends (I don't have any ). This year I have had to do it all. She has been with me each time I've gone, but Lisa has not been much help in the idea department. She is usually over in the shoe or "I don't know" department.

Anyway, it totally sucks. I am so indifferent to the whole Holiday Season this year, I don't even care. Gift cards are out of course because they're not personal enough. When I ask somebody what they want, I always get the Nothing or Anything response.

Wouldn't it be great to be able to do that? Anything or Nothing? Lisa would ask, "Why didn't you get my mom anything?" I confidently reply, "She said she didn't want anything." The look on the mother's face would make my Christmas. That would be all I want. Or the other way, my brother opens his gift and, HO-HO-HO, finds McDonalds gift certificates or a Salad Shooter. It would be great!

I did buy a couple things for the kids that I am excited to see opened. My daughter wanted an iPod Nano which was tough to find, but I got one. She isn't expecting to get one so it should be a nice surprise.

But the big one is, every since our son was little, he has always wanted a sword. Not that fake kind of cheap-looking, some plastic piece of crap. But a metal and wood with a nice handle kind of sword. I have no idea what for. What does a 20 year old do with a sword? The images in my head are endless. I ordered a very nice ninja style sword online for him and it came in a couple of days ago. It is so cool. It's not very sharp, but when I opened it at work, I thought to myself that I could do some damage with it and probably take down every co-worker here before the cops arrived. (Good thing for them it was a good day)

The place I work at does decorative sandblast etching and we also have a guy that can write in Japanese, so I sandblasted his name on the blade in Japanese with the phrase "Love Mom and Dad". It looks amazing!!

On Christmas morning, I think we are going to do "The Christmas Story" BB gun behind the desk trick.

Butch