I am a huge fan of quantity when it comes to kids gifts. One of my most memorable gifts as a child was in 6th grade. I got the entire series of Nancy Drew books for my birthday - 51 books. For a reader that was a gift beyond my wildest imagination. I read those books over and over and over. It made a huge impression on me. I absolutely loved that gift.
When my nieces were younger I would practice the qift of quantity to great success. One year I gave both of them a huge box of dress-up supplies. Clothes, shoes, jewelry, makeup, wigs, sunglasses, boas, gloves and all kinds of accessories. Big impact. They still talk about it and have numerous pictures of them dressed up in the outfits they put together.
I gave my oldest niece 15 CDs one year using one of those Columbia House membership deals. I gave the youngest one over 100 Polly Pocket items one year - she said she wanted one of everything - I didn't even come close to that goal 
Then there was the year I gave them a dollhouse kit and accessories for the rooms. We spent several weekends together the next six months building the doll house. They still have it - although many of the accessories have been vacuumed up or eaten by pets.
When they are little it is easy to buy a lot of stuff for a small amount of money. It's impressive to them to get a huge bag full of things. They both talk about my never ending bags of gifts at xmas and bdays.
Now that they are bigger it is much harder to impress with quantity. Just one item on their list is $50 and worse of all they want cash or gift cards. Ah well. To assauge my need to gift quantity I bought 15 Hot Wheels yesterday and will donate them to Toys for Tots. They were .89/each. I would like to see them all go to one child, but I'm sure they won't.
I had to go in town for a dr's appt and stopped at the Elephant Bar to get 4 $25 gift cards for my dad's xmas gift. I got a $20 bonus card for buying the 4 cards, so he will get $120 worth of gift cards for $100. Plus I used my credit card that gives me 5% back on restaurants this month making me $5.
The kidney that was removed did have cancer - so in a way that's good news. I'd have been very upset to find out they took out my kidney and the mass was not cancer. Healing as expected. No signs that the cancer spread anywhere else. I have to get CT scans every 6 months for the next 2 years before they say you are cancer free.
I finishes reading my book Black Hills by Nora Roberts. Mystery/Romance - very good.
quantity
December 2nd, 2010 at 05:37 am
December 2nd, 2010 at 11:59 am 1291291148
Example of FREE:
I was in a store grand opening Wed. They were passing out small stuffed Kangaroos. I mentioned in passing that I had 4 grands & they gave me 4. I had figgured on 1-2. I was a REAL happy camper.
December 2nd, 2010 at 03:25 pm 1291303528
I'm glad to hear that you are progressing. Keeping a possitive attitude is half of healing.
December 3rd, 2010 at 12:08 pm 1291378109
Jerry
December 4th, 2010 at 02:07 am 1291428427