There was a time, not too long ago, when giving gift cards reflected the amonut of thought (ie you were an afterthought or I didn’t really think much of you) gift.  I suppose in some ways that may still be true, but I personally ask for them.

Why?

Once upon a time, I asked my husband for cooking stuff for Christmas. I love to cook but I don’t really see the need for expensive (and sometimes time saving) gadgets. Especially when there are growing kids in the house that always need something. What I asked for was a very expensive Caphlon sauce pan. At that price I could buy four cheaper ones, but I new they were better because I’d cooked with my Dad’s and experienced the difference. Still, I couldn’t justify the cost so I waited patiently for Santa and didn’t get it.

For three years, I asked for the pan.

My husband finally confessed that he wouldn’t get it because how could he tell his coworkers that he’d bought his wife a pan for Christmas? Um, she asked for the pan, the very expensive pan, that’s how.  Nope. I finally bought the pan myself.

Then there was the rollerskates. This time I got smart and asked my mom and dad. Yes I was 37 but that was beside the point. It took two years for them to arrive but they finally bought me a pair. Oddly, my parents used too give me cooking stuff:-). I still have my skates and if you see me, I’m the one using broomsticks like ski poles since I have crappy balance and falling hurts when you’re over 40.

So back to the gift cards. The year, I’m participating in the Book Lovers Buffet

And I wanted to stock my ipad (nook and kindle apps) with lots of lovely discounted books to read when I’m not writing. Having heard of the issuess associated with buying large quanitities of ebooks, I decided amazon and barnes and noble gift cards were the way to go.

I managed to blow through my amazon gift card with no problem, but when I got to Barnes and Noble, the fatheads stopped me. Apparently, even though I had a gift card, their computers still accessed my credit card and stopped the sale (too many zero charges perhaps). Anyway. I’m rather annoyed that I still have a gift card balance 3 days after Christmas because BN has a glitch in their software.  Of course, I plan to mention this problem when I get the survey they threatened to send after every purchase.

And before you judge me too harshly for being a free spender, I still have a Michael’s gift card that I haven’t touched yet.