Grab Bag Gift

In a couple of weeks my ladies group is having our quarterly get together dinner. There are 10 of us in our very exclusive, by invitation only group. There is one more lady who we would love to include, but she moved to Texas before we started. If we could only get her to come for a visit we'd throw an impromptu dinner in her honor. But no one else has come close to being invited in the four or five years we've been doing this.

We all met through work. I'm the newbie to the group, I've only known them all about 14 years. I did know one of them in grad school, so I guess I've known her 16 years. Some of the rest of them go back 25 years or more. We all worked at various times at the firm I'm still with, but I don't think we were all there at the same time. Even when not working there everyone stayed in the industry and worked as auditors or for clients. The first time I met two of them, they were auditing one of my clients who had me handling the case for them.

But that's not what I'm posting about. We have these dinners. We drink. We gossip about work and people we all know in the industry. We share family news. We encourage each other. We watch out for each other in the business world. We are a secret society. We don't tell anyone at work about our group. At our next dinner we are doing a post-holiday grab bag gift exchange. We did it last year too. We have a $10 limit. Everyone brought candles and lotions. Except me. I brought a cookbook. See, I've told you I'm a freak in all aspects of my life. We were doing the thing where you open the gifts one at a time and you could steal the present from someone else. Well wouldn't you know, my cookbook kept getting stolen. That set the bar. I had to find something good for this year that wasn't a candle or lotion.

Inspired by the Fuzzy Feet Piggy sent me for Christmas, I found these:



Purple monkey slipper socks! Aren't they great? Violet and I found them at the Hanes store at the outlet mall today. They had cats and pigs and dogs and something we think were sheep. I let Violet pick. I plan to give them with a box of:



It is a winter comfort kit!

So be honest, what do you think about my plan? I don't know if it is just me or if everyone gets tired of yet another candle and more scented lotions and body wash. But I definitely do. I'd be happy to come home with it. I hope they like it. I have a reputation to uphold.