This year I achieved something amazing. Something I have been trying to do for 24 years. I surprised Marsha with her Christmas gift. 

This is actually very hard to do. She checks the online statements every few days. If I use the credit or debit cards she will see it immediately. It might not say what I bought but something that looks out of place will jump out at her. Sure if I got something at Best Buy I might be able to convince her that it was for work but this is tough to do when it's from a jewelry or lingerie store. There have been times that I've gotten back from one of the sites, walked in the door and the first thing Marsha has said is "Thank you for fuelling the car." She's that on top of the books which is great, but it does make surprising her for Christmas rather difficult. On top of that we tend to shop together which makes it even trickier. 

My plan started when we moved into the house three years ago. I started putting change in a large jar in the corner of the closet. Each week or a couple of times per week I'd drop a few coins in. Slowly this stash built up "off the books". 

A few weeks ago when Marsha was at work I dumped all the change into a canvas grocery bag and stashed it in the bottom of my tool box in the garage. Later that day I "had to run to the Nanaimo Office". In reality I went out to the garage, grabbed the bag of change and went to the Credit Union. I walked in with the 20 pound bag of change on my arm and set it on the tellers counter. "I want to cash in my Christmas Club". She was more than happy to help me, until she saw that it was all coin. "We don't have a coin counter." I asked what I could do to get this cashed. She smiled and handed me a bundle of coin rolls. 

So I headed home and re stashed the bag o'coins plus rolls. For the next week, every time Marsha was out of the house I grabbed the bag and worked on my stash. (Like wow, does that ever bring back college memories.) First I separated the coins into Quarters, Nickels, Dimes, and Pennies. Then I started rolling the coins. Finally after a lot of work, and almost getting caught a couple of times, I had the Quarters, Nickels and Dimes rolled. I put the Pennies back in the jar. They weren't worth the work to count and with a layer of Pennies in the jar if Marsha were to drop change in she's hear it hit coins rather than the clankaty clank of them landing in an empty glass jar. 

So a week later I "had to run to the Nanaimo Office" again.  I was out to the bank again with my bag of rolled coins. I took them to the teller, the same one, it's a small town, and told her I needed these converted to paper. She said fine and started counting them. I asked if she was going to weigh the rolls to make sure none were short, "No, We trust you." Like, I've said before, it's good to live in a small town. Then finally armed with a decent sized wad of cash I headed over to Future Shop and got an iPod Nano for Marsha. Then I returned home with the Nano stashed in my work computer bag. The next day I moved the Nano to a secure hiding place. Finally the next week when Marsha was again at work I got up and wrapped it. The case the Nano comes in is almost exactly the size and shape of a ring box, something I was counting on to further misdirect her. I wrapped that in paper. I had planned this out carefully and so the Nano was put in additional layers of wrapping to further hide it's true identity and then I put the whole thing under the tree. 

When it came time for Marsha to open her present I handed her a Holiday Gift bag the size of a grocery bag. 
Inside the bag was a large white plastic bag crumpled into a bundle
Inside the bundle was a box.
The box was wrapped
Under the paper the box was tied with a ribbon
Inside the first box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the second box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the third box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the fourth box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the fifth box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the sixth box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the seventh box was another box tied with a ribbon.
Inside the eighth box was a package about the size of a ring box wrapped in paper.
Under the paper was the Nano.

Marsha was delighted with it. She uses our iPods a lot for work and when she's gardening. The old ones we have are big bulky, and with their mechanical old style hard drives, more than a little bit fragile. This is tiny and light and holds everything she wants. Plus it even has a radio built in.

Best of all I finally surprised her.
Unfortunately it may be another three years before I can do this again.

Happy Holidays to all and a reminder to drive safe and enjoy your time with family and friends!!

Doug & Marsha

Momiji is the Queen. Her throne is even a Royal Purple Pillow.


These are the boxes I used for the gift. It's actually a set of 12, but the last 4 were too small for the Nano case.