Coasters: 2006

Last year, I explained the history of The Coasters here. Short version: a wedding gift from a cousin to Tom and me of plastic lime-green coasters ended up being traded back and forth between Lynne and me over the years, until her son Jess got engaged and I brought his fiancée Laura into the mix.

Then last December, I pre-empted what I feared would be a return of the coasters to me by giving Laura lemon-slice coasters and Lynne watermelon-slice coasters. Laura also got some sponges with fruit slices on them and some fruit-slice candles. Because she’s so sweet, I figured she deserved a little something extra.

Sure enough, on Christmas Day 2005, the lime-slice coasters came home to me. Fine. That just meant I’d have to regift them.

This year, Lynne told me she was planning to give Jess and Laura the first six pieces of the Willow Tree Nativity Set. Rather than buying additional figures or the Willow Tree Creche, Tom and I hoped to make our gift a more personalized part of their collection. Tom built a creche, which I then painted, and we found a star for it. Here’s the way it looked when we were working on it. I put a couple of my Willow Tree angels with it to judge the wash color I wanted, and we still hadn’t decided on the height of the star.

On Christmas Day, Lynne helped us sneak it into her house and set it up with her gift.

We successfully surprised Laura and Jess. Surely a heartwarming Christmas moment like that was enough to send Laura and Lynne scurrying to the Christmas tree to remove any evil gifts that might be payback from last year’s lemon- and watermelon-slice coasters. Right?

Of course, I did consider putting the creche on top of the lime-green coasters, but I thought better of it. After all, I’m not a cruel person.

Or am I?

See, I have this plate that Lynne likes and often threatens to steal. Maybe because I always find a reason to use it when she’s here, and she thinks I’m taunting her. (Me?!?)

This year while shopping, I found one very similar and got it for her.

I’m so thoughtful! I even decided to put brownies on it when I took it over! But first…

then

and finally,

Look how surprised and delighted Lynne was at my offering! She had to turn her head to hide her tears of joy.

Sweet! Lime-slice coasters back to Lynne, nice gift of the creche to Laura–oh, wait. I gave Laura a little something extra to go with last year’s lemon-slice coasters.

My evil elf mission accomplished, I could now sit back and enjoy gift-opening mayhem and general dog insanity at Green Acres.

Remember the last time I featured a photo of Jess and Laura’s dog, Sue? She looked like this:

Here’s Sue now, all embarrassed by her silver bow. She weighs almost as much as Laura, and she’s still growing.

Sue’s big brother, Seig, tearing up the gift paper.

And Minute, tearing up her niece, Sue.

Yes, a happy and chaotic Christmas at Green Acres. But…. was it quite over? I opened this lovely gift box that was under the tree for me.

They thought I wouldn’t like these floating candles, so imagine their disappointment when I said, “Hey, these are kind of cool.”

Okay, so I wasn’t as thrilled about the other candles I got, but candles can be burned and don’t fall under the You Must Not Harm the Coasters Rule.

Unfortunately, the following do fall under the rule. And they are in a “spiffy” new carrying case.

But that was okay. At least Laura got me this nice little wooden box. Cute, huh?

Um, maybe not.

All right, all right. I get it. Payback is hell, and the lemon- and watermelon-slice coasters have come back to haunt me. But at least I’m free of the lime-slice coasters until next… What? Another gift? A reminder of what?

Fine. It’s ON, bitches. And April? If you’re reading this? Don’t think Lynne, Laura, and I didn’t notice how much you laughed and laughed. Be afraid. Be very afraid…