A little too ironic...

...yeah, I really do think. It's like raaaaiiinnnnnn...

Whoops! Sorry, you really don't want to hear me sing.

Now, if everyone will behave themselves, I will tell a little story. I haven't told a little story like this in the past year since a certain relative started calling my cousins to find out what story I told. Stories like this got my blog going, so in other words, feel free to laugh, just don't go talking to my family!

Since my mom's aunt, Eula Mae, is about to move to Frisco to be near her daughter, my grandmother decided all of her family needed to come to town and over to my parents' house on Sunday. That's really jumping ahead of the story other than to say that Grandmother was in town.

Our preacher, Sam, starts the sermon off with a story as preachers tend to do. His story was about a the Christmas after he graduated from preaching school. His aunt always gave money for Christmas. That year, Sam and his wife really could have used the money, he said. But, when it came time to open presents, everyone got money except for Sam.  Sam received a pecan shell sculpture of the last supper dipped in copper that ended up at a garage sale after sitting in a box for a while.

I'm thinking... oh, good grief... been there, wish I had the money. I've had the same experience before.  With the person sitting to my left. The person who finds this story funny and is laughing right out loud with the rest of the audience. I look my mom's way. She leans in towards me. I just shake my head and look ahead.

So, later, I tell Aunt Susan about the story, except she's already heard it. From Grandmother because she found it so funny. I said, "but Susan, you didn't have to sit next to her during the story. Do you know how hard that was?" She said she could imagine.

About 15 minutes or so later, we were all siting in the living room. Grandmother walks in something behind her back. Oh, no. This can't be good.

Grandmother says, "I went to this estate sale, and I just bought one thing - for Ricky."

Oh, no. Dad is the recipient.

"They had this tin that has a retired bear on it, sitting in his recliner watching TV."

Oh, no. This is almost as bad as the politically soap on a rope that one Christmas. Especially since he had just been talking about how he had not had the TV on during the day since he'd been retired.

"And when I brought it back over to Eula Mae's, someone pointed out it had a coin slot in the top so we can take a collection."

I guess someone didn't get the point of the sermon that morning. OK, so the real point was really more about grace than bad choices in gift giving. It was a bit ironic though.

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