Friendship FAIL

Remember how I'm a fabulous gift buyer? Well, truth be told, I am. Or at least I try to be.

I put a lot of thought into presents and get so much joy out of finding something I know a friend will love.

The wrapping, packing and shipping is another story.

The year Mac was born, I knew I'd be in the throes of newborn exhaustion come Christmastime, so I had all of our "to ship" gifts purchased and wrapped by mid-September. I placed them in a closet and promptly forgot about them until JANUARY. Horror.

I thought I couldn't top that until....this summer. No newborn to blame.

I purchased gifts for my two dearest friends; Kristen's son was turning one in July and Erin's birthday (just days after her own newborn's) was in late June.

Everything was purchased and set aside in late May. May, people. I'm terrible at secrets. How could I ever keep a gift to myself that long?

On July 29, two days before my own birthday, these sweet packages arrived to celebrate:



Excuse the fuzzy phone pics of such fun, thoughtful, EARLY birthday treats.

Instantly I realized that baby Wynn's gift, a precious personalized bowl and plate set with his name literally and figuratively written all over it, was still on my dining room table.
In addition, a soft ABC book was waiting to be mailed to the birthday boy. It evidently looked so inviting that Mac convinced himself "finders, keepers!" and seemed hesitant to let it go.

Not that a few moments delayed the gift much in the scheme of things. It was already two weeks late by then. Sigh.


And Erin's birthday gift had been left in our trunk (wrapped!) when we met up with her in Charleston to meet baby Katherine after our beach week. At least we remembered to bring in the baby's gift!

Erin's daughter Katherine and our Mac each have handsome chocolate labs, so we were excited to have a little treat made in honor of her "big brother" Harper.

I'd show you a picture of mama Erin's gift, but I delayed mailing it in the hopes that we'd see each other this month. Since that hasn't happened yet, and her birthday's nearly eight weeks behind us, its sweet little wrapped self is on its way to the FedEx store tomorrow, mark my words.

I'm glad I can celebrate the things I'm good at - gift buying, for instance. Gift giving, however, seems to be a stretch for me. Just the getting in there part. Ugh.

Think I can ever be forgiven for such friendship fails to the most thoughtful of people? Remember, should your gift ever been tardy, that it still comes with the best of intentions!