December 14, 2007 | | Personal stuff

This trip has officially become entirely too complicated. First of all, my boyfriend’s mom has to work on Christmas so we’re having “Christmas” on Friday the 21st. Which means we have to leave next Thursday and my boyfriend will have to take two days off of work (which he can’t really afford after our week long vacation last month).

Besides that, we realized today that we’ve completely screwed ourselves as far as presents. His mother wants to do the whole “sit-around-the-tree-and-feign-surprise-at-lame-gifts” thing. (And her gifts are lame. I present to you Exhibit A: a garlic press.) You know, ’cause it’s “Christmas.” Well, remember how my boyfriend told her originally that we couldn’t come up because we didn’t have any money? And then she immediately sent us money in order to guilt us into coming up there? Well guess what we bought ourselves for Christmas? I’m getting a shiny new camera and my boyfriend’s getting a PSP (Playstation Portable). Yeah. Both of those items come in at around $200 each. “Yeah, boyfriend’s mom, we were sooo broke that we went out and spent $400 on superfluous things for ourselves.” (And really, it’s a lot more than $400 after you add in some video games, books and DVDs.)

Now, in my defense we didn’t actually PAY for any of that stuff. We really DON’T have an extra $500 of completely expendable money. But it’s Christmas and we splurge on ourselves at Christmas. (I splurge on myself because I was a spoiled only-child who got whatever she wanted, a tradition I want to keep alive, and I MAKE my boyfriend splurge on himself because he had a shitty childhood and NEVER got ANYTHING he wanted (Lame Christmas present Exhibit B and C: a box of condoms and some socks. I’m not making this up! I was there!) ) And really, that’s what the awesomeness that is Bill Me Later is for.

But still, how does one explain such expensive gifts and not sound like an idiot.

“Yeah, I know we said we were broke and all, but we didn’t actually pay for these gifts.”

“No, no, we didn’t steal them! We used Bill Me Later.”

“Well, it’s this service that… No, it’s not a credit card! They don’t charge interest unless you don’t make a minimum payment every month.”

“No, it’s not a scam!”

Yeah, so that’s not gonna work. We’re not sure what to do. We could just not bring the big gifts and exchange the games, books, and DVDs instead. But both of us really want to play with our new toys! But if we do it’s gonna be awkward because his parents are going to know that we were totally lying to them about coming up in the first place. And at that point we will have already taken their money. I think we should just give the money back, but my boyfriend says they’ll be insulted if we do. So basically we’re in a no win situation.

Also, whatever lame gifts we come up with to get them (they are definition of “hard to shop for”) are going to WAY pale in comparison to what we bought for ourselves. So we look even more ungrateful and self-centered.

What can we do? It’s Christmas and we wanted to be happy, so we bought ourselves some items we’ve been wanting all year long. And now we’re horrible people because of it. So I give up. Is Christmas over yet?

Tags: Bill me later, christmas, family, gifts, Tennessee, trip

One Response to “Screwed”

Comments RSS | TrackBack URI