It’s not incredibly uncommon for us to make fun of our mothers because they like to save Christmas ribbon off of presents, or re-use gift bags.  I know that moms across America have this incommon with my mother.  But my mom takes this obsession one step further.

First off, this year my mom found a new hobby: creative regifting.

It’s the most annoying/clever/cheap thing she’s ever done.  She decided that this year she wasn’t going to buy those stupid little useless gifts that you give to your aquaintances just because they gave you one.  You know what I’m talking about…the $5 Bath and Body Works gift set, or the snowman dish towel set.  Instead, she was going to covertly re-wrap the useless gifts she received from her co-workers and regift them to other people.

And if that wasn’t senile enough for you, she also flew over the cuckoo’s nest when she relentlessly refused to discard of any present wrapping aside from paper.

My sister received a package of nuts in a cardboard box with plastic lining, and my mom saved it.  She claims that next year she’s going to bake some goodies and use the box as a gift to someone.  Mom even saved the carboard gift tag that had writing on it because she said that she wanted to re-create the tag next year.

After I “opened” a mini felt stocking (about the size of a gift card) that had a gift card (what a surprise!) in it, I pretended to throw the stocking away, and my mom yelped.  “No!  We can reuse that!”

Team Olive won.

It’s totally that time when everyone is writing their top ten lists for 2008.  So, I’m going to throw my hat in the ring, and write a top-ten here.

My friend Julie emailed me a holiday wish, and told me to stop everything and to go to “Fuck You, Penguin.”

It’s a blog where the author gives cute animals what they deserve.

My personal favorite was this one:

I get it, Whale, you’re busy. I’ve only been on this FUCKING BOAT for three and a half hours waiting for you, and the only thing I’ve seen so far is my lunch from earlier. It’s not like you spend your entire goddamn life in the ocean, so I see why you would only come up for basically a split second. Personally, if someone was going to all this trouble specifically to see me, I would take time out of my BUSY ASS SCHEDULE to at least stop by the boat and make some small talk, maybe have some salmon. But I understand, Whale, places to go, 500 pounds of food to eat. I’ll be fine. The real question here, Whale, is will you be fine? Can you really live with yourself? Maybe you need to make a change.

[Fuck You Penguin]

Oh, and Merry Xmas if that’s your thing.

[midday]

It’s been a while since I posted a random mid-day break…but I get the feeling you need this one today: