And I still don't know what is going on

I sent out six emails asking what the plan for today was, and I only got one response. With a bit of prompting I got a second response, which I liked even less than the first one. A third person has said that he is open to suggestions, but he thinks that we ought to head out like we are going to dinner as usual, exchange gifts before we eat, and then the people who have to be somewhere else can leave right after that, and then the rest of us can catch up with them after we eat.

And that would have been a really good plan, except that the second response to my email said that one of us isn't going to be at the meeting at all.

I give up.

We didn't have to do anything at all. We discussed this in plenty of time to say, let's just skip it this year. But nobody said that they wanted to do that. So I'm thinking business as usual, and I go ahead with what I normally do. And then it was a ten dollar limit. Well, it is too late, but whatever. Most people got something worth more than ten dollars. Most of them are getting something that I made, and the supplies cost more than ten dollars. And the one person I had bought something less than ten dollars, cause I thought he didn't have money and I would just get him this little thing that he didn't have instead of a card like he would probably give me, but then he went and sold something so that he could have money to spend for Christmas, so I have added something to his gift. Besides, I thought that I would give him something like that next year, only now I'm not so sure that I want to do this next year, so if I want him to have it now is the time.

One of the seven indicated that she would mostly be giving us baked goods. It wasn't quite an announcement, and it wasn't quite asking permission, but I am thinking that I'm getting cake or cookies or something from her. And that's fine, and I put some thought into what I would get her, something that would be an appropriate exchange for cookies but something that wouldn't look cheap compared with what I got everyone else. The fruit basket is done, and while it is not the most impressive fruit basket ever, I think that it looks pretty good. So that's fine, except that now I think someone else in the group is giving baked goods too, maybe two others.

I don't have two other fruit baskets. I will just have to go with what I originally planned for them.

I was thinking about the gift exchange and baked goods idea. What if everyone exchanged baked goods? So, there are seven of us, and one of us has said that she'll probably give us baked goods, so she goes and makes six cakes or pies or whatever. And, expecting to get baked goods from her, the rest of us want to give her something of equal value, like probably more baked goods. So in return we each make a dozen brownies or two dozen cookies or whatever. That might sound really dumb, but people do that. There is this thing called a cookie exchange. People do this. So, in this example there are seven of us, and if all six of the rest of us got her baked goods, she would end up with about 144 cookies, or something like that.

I don't think that is such a great idea, especially since several of us should lose some weight, and we already know that she's attempting a diet. If all seven of us made baked goods for the rest of us, we would be in serious trouble.

Which isn't to say that we couldn't all trade homemade stuff if we wanted, just that we shouldn't all do desserts. If a couple of people did desserts, and then maybe someone could make spaghetti sauce and someone could make salsa and someone else could make cheese balls. And then maybe someone else could make non-foods, like maybe soap or candles.

It isn't impossible to homemade gift exchanges that do not ruin your health, but it does take some planning, which we didn't do this time.

Anyway, I've got to put all of this stuff in the car, still not knowing what the plan is. But I am guessing that it will be an exchange after dinner with three or four of us, and we will just have to figure the rest out later. Two of the people at dinner will be getting IOUs. It's too bad that it didn't work out differently, with the people not at dinner getting the IOUs. They wouldn't have noticed.