Posts Tagged: "Christmas"

Nostalgia of Owning a Volkswagen Bug

Queen Darlene - November 30, 2013 - Anniversary, Birthday, Business, Experiences, Father's Day, Gifts for Him

My boss Dennis and I have compared many stories of our Volkswagen Bugs we drove during our college years. There was no better car for poor college kids. They were inexpensive to buy, inexpensive to maintain, and inexpensive to fill up with gas. The key word here is inexpensive! And when other fancier vehicles were stuck in the snow, the Bug could travel on by.

My boss Dennis gets ready to drive down memory lane in his Volkswagen Bug rental car my co-workers and I bought him as a Christmas present.

The nostalgia of owning a VW Bug is a strong and wonderful feeling. Imagine giving someone the gift of reliving such a feeling!

We did just that for Dennis. Last year for Christmas, my co-workers and I gave our boss a VW Bug rental car for the weekend. After locating a rental car service that had a VW Bug, we had to be flexible with the timing.

You can rent a car anytime, anyplace but asking for a particular vehicle, you may have to wait for availability. Thankfully, a couple of weeks before Christmas, the rental car service called that a VW Bug had become available. Perfect!

An Aloha Christmas | A Surprise Family Vacation

Queen Darlene - November 29, 2013 - Anniversary, Birthday, Christmas, Experiences, Kids

Our family tradition is to open presents on Christmas Eve. But in 1998, we opened gifts a few days earlier. We told our children there were family members going out of town, and they would not be here for Christmas. Luckily, they did not ask which family members because it was US!

For weeks, I had shopped for summer clothes in the winter. Not an easy feat trying to find bathing suits because Internet shopping wasn’t really a thing yet back then.

My sons parasailing over the ocean.

I purchased brand new suitcases for my two boys and packed shorts, t-shirts, snorkel gear, beach towels and sunscreen. On top of that, I placed what I wanted my children to first see – brochures and airline tickets of where we were going to be on Christmas Day!

That evening at my in-laws, we did the usual holiday ritual of eating, visiting and opening gifts. We had our children open their gifts from us last. When they opened their presents and found suitcases containing clothes, they were puzzled. The look in their eyes said, “Uh, what’s this? Clothes? Really?”

We all know 17 and 13 year old boys hate getting clothes of any kind. For any occasion.

I couldn’t believe they missed the brochures of beaches and surfers!