Never Say Never: Electronics Edition

Sometimes showering your loved one with huge surprises and grand gestures is just the right thing to do. T's birthday, a week ago today, struck me as an opportunity to go above and beyond. For more reasons than I can count here, he deserved  birthday fireworks this year. And because he's the last person to ever expect them, fireworks seemed especially fitting.

Our gift tradition is opening presents in bed. I'm not sure how it began, but we love doing it this way. When we celebrate Christmas, there's wrapping everywhere and the cats think it's a holiday just for them, wrestling over our legs with ribbon. It becomes a family event. And so we set the alarm for 5 a.m. the morning after we returned from New Orleans. I put on some jazz to liven us up, brewed some coffee, and brought in the presents.

His card (letterpress of course, this year from Smock):

His "small" gifts: A print for hanging and his favorite bottle of Scotch for drinking:

The big surprise: I'd been saving for months to gift him with a big electronic purchase that he wouldn't justify on his own. Me? Not really an electronics kind of girl. But T most certainly is. When it came down to it, though, I couldn't decide which boy toy would make him happier: a new tv (he hated his old one) or half a laptop (his trusty Mac is entering its golden years). In the end, I decided to go the gift card route, letting him choose for himself. But since a gift card is unromantic, I had to dress up the presentation a bit, showing him that the boring old gift card I was giving him was actually a romantic gesture. To dress it up, I made a little book that described why he deserved a big present and told a meandering tale of cuteness until the big reveal. It was kind of adorable.

The book listed just some of the things I wanted to get for him but couldn't ("brownstone in Washington, D.C. complete with new job," for example). It also laid out my thought process around shiny electronics, that half of the fun for him would undoubtedly be picking his new toy out himself. In that case, then...

A pocket for the gift card, but presented in a way that made him grin like crazy.

It was adorable, actually. His eyes got big and I can only imagine what went through his head:

1. How in the world did limited-income Maggie manage to save $1,000 without me knowing about it?
2. My laptop still has some legs ... the tv, on the other hand... yessssssss!!!!!
3. Maggie didn't even watch tv before we started dating.
4. She already thinks our tv is enormous and kind of embarrassing.
   
5. But it's nothing compared to the tv I plan on picking out.
   
6. Is she sure she's ready for this?
7. YESSSSSSSS.

Two days later, with the assistance of my gift card, a gift card from his mother-in-law (thanks Mom!), and some of his own cash thrown in, he was pulling the protective plastic off this behemoth:

Even better? This weekend he sold his old tv on Craiglist, meaning that a 52" Sony LCD cost him about $200.

Happy tv times in our place. And a happy, happy birthday for someone who really deserved it. Now if only I could figure out how to work the DVR...