Remember These Bad Boys?

Well, the dreaded gift giving this season went so much smoother & with such less stress than in years before!  All thanks to a strict following of the Want, Need, Wear, Read system.  So, a big fat "Woot-woot!" goes out to the inventors of the idea!

We were extremely blessed, considering our minimalistic approach, by those around us.  We had a family discussion on Christmas night, and all were in agreement that this has been our favorite Christmas ever.  Not necessarily because of the haul, but the quality OVER quantity results that came.   

I personally ADORED how easy, quick, & mostly painless that the W.N.W.R. system made my Christmas preparation this year.  I greatly appreciated how it freed our family up more to enjoys the activities & Christmas festivities throughout the ENTIRE month of December.  Not to mention it eliminated a lot of common distractions and allowed us to more easily focus on the true reason for the season, which is Jesus Christ, our Savior.  (May I also note that I, myself, did not spend a single CENT at the mall this year!  That is a very BIG deal, btw.)  

All of our extended family spoiled us rotten, as they usually do.  And for those gifts we are extremely grateful, but more importantly for the spirit & love in which they were given.  Thank you to all!

But since this post is a raving review of the W. N. W. R. gift system, I'm spotlighting below the system's yield, and possible ideas/interpretations in case you're considering implementing this plan in your family next year (we'll never go back, if you're wondering!):

***OKIZZAY! THIS IS THE AWESOME POST I WAS RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF WHEN MY DEAR SWEET OL' LAPPY WENT DOWN. SO I'LL HAVE TO FILL IN WITH A TYPED DESCRIPTION RATHER THAN PHOTO PROOF OF THE SPLENDOR THAT WAS OUR FAMILY'S FIRST "W.N.W.R. CHRISTMAS."***

Mini-Me's last gift was her READ gift, and she scored 3 of my favorite classic books:
Emma by Jane Austen, Walden & Civil Disobedience by Henry David Thoreau, and lastly Aesop's Fables.  Good stuff!  :)

On to what my sweet family did for me.  Mr LKP & Mini-Me got me the new Sorry! Sliders game that I've been eye-ing for months.  It was the perfect fulfillment of my WANT.  Mini-Me took care of my NEED by giving me a new CD/DVD case that fits 256 discs!  So perfect, because I kept wondering how I could sneak one of those in as a family gift.  I'd thought of bending Santa's ear and asking him to bring one, since we've greatly out grown our other, comparably sized, case with our existing movie collection (not to mention the inevitable discs that show up each & every Christmas).  So Mini-Me did good.  Mr LKP nailed both my WEAR & READ in one lovely bundle.  In a gift bag was my WEAR, which was a new, sensible, but killer-stylish-cute purse!  He, get this, found it at the local snowboard shop!  It's perfect in every way, especially since my Guatamalen bag has been getting hammered lately, and my other favorite bag's lining is falling to pieces, as is it's bottom.  INSIDE this lovely new purse was my READ!  A gift certificate to my favorite hair gal AND one to a new spa for a 55 minute massage!!!!!  Mr LKP struck gold this year.  :)

Lastly, what we did for Mr LKP takes the cake.  Not gonna lie, Mr LKP can be hard on his undies.  And not in a gross way!  Just in a, buy-new-ones-for everybody-else-first kinda way.  When I've tried to get him new ones before, he scoffs and says his are just fine.  He basically won't let me spoil him on anything, includes his drawers.  But, ladies & gentlemen, he's a trucker and a construction guy.  So, since it was Christmas, he couldn't refuse them!  Ha ha ha ha....so for his NEED, I ordered him two weeks worth of them.  And he did finally admit he'd been hoping for some.  You could've said they might have been his most favorite gift....but they weren't since I'm AMAZING!!!!  (And I'll tell you why in a bit.)  His WEAR were two new pairs of his most favorite jeans (he's so easy since he says he has a Wal-Mart body, lol.  He LOVES the Wrangler's Carpenter jeans there).  Mr LKP's READ was this FABULOUS newer-to-my-knowledge book Defined by Christ by Toni Sorenson, and a journal as a companion to working through the book.  The combo together came HIGHLY recommended by a sweet friend there at our local LDS bookstore, and I gotta say that before I even left the store, that book already had me in tears.  (I figured it would be perfect in sorting through some family stuff he's still working through.) 
...NOW, ARE YOU READY FOR THIS?  ARE YOU HANGIN' ON THE EDGE OF YOUR SEAT?!  Mr LKP's WANT gift trumped all others given in our little family for Christmas 2010.  He was handed the last gift from under our tree.  It was a light-weight shirt box.  And it didn't make much of a sound when it was shaken, either.  He unwrapped the box, and waded through the miles of tissue paper inside to find a large, blank, thick manilla envelope.  (Turns out, as he told it later, that he panicked in that moment and feared that this was a sick way to deliver divorce papers, and on Christmas Day no less!  Ha ha ha ha ha.....)  However, he mustered up the nerve to open the envelope anyway, and there inside he found:
A GIFT CERTIFICATE FOR HIS FIRST INTRO-FLIGHT WITH A FLIGHT INSTRUCTOR AT THE LOCAL FLIGHT SCHOOL!!!!!!
It has only been his lifelong dream to fly, to be a pilot.  We've talked & talked about it.  He's even been trying to figure out how to make his GI Bill & VA dollars pay for schooling so he could gain a Bachelor's in aviation.  However, to this point, nothing has materialized yet....and the closest he's come has been as a passenger, across seas to Iraq, then to DC for his big Cancer/disability scare & home again.  He looked up from the certificate in tears.  It. was. perfect.  (We also slid this awesome necktie in the envelope--hence the thickness--that had cool WWI & WWII fighter planes on it!  He wore it to church the very next day.  Lol.)

So there you have it.  Not oodles & oodles of gifts mass-producing under this year's tree.  But what was there, in those 12 gifts, was the most perfect Christmas we've ever experienced.  Good money was spent, but not too much either.  We stayed within a modest budget (thanks to shopping local, and getting great sales/using bookoo coupons).  We weren't overwhelmed either.  We were content, and together, and able to enjoy one another....the holiday....and focus on our Savior, the real purpose of Christmas. 

Happy endings always get us.  So, next year we'll continue the W.N.W.R. tradition.  Perhaps you'll join us in the peace of mind it brings!  :)

***AND GUESS WHAT?!  I was able to recover the rest of the images that I thought I'd otherwise lost in the great Lappy Crash of 2010, thanks to PICASA!!!!  Picasa rocks!  So below you'll see the images that would've posted with this post (huzzah!), starting with where we left off, Mini-Me's Read:

Here's the LKP loot (almost typed 'booty', but realized how totally borderline inappropriate "LKP's booty" reads):

And finally, the coup de grâce, Mr LKP's haul:

HOORAY FOR PICASA SAVING THE DAY!!!!***