Birthday Presents.

I’m inherently awful at shopping for birthday presents. It takes me hours of aimless wandering through a large shopping center to decide on one item that the person I’m shopping for might enjoy. These days, I’m usually spared the torture of trying to find the perfect gift, because a group of friends and I have gotten into the habit of pooling our money to get one great present, which the birthday boy or girl is guaranteed to enjoy more than a few small individually bought presents.

It started two years ago when friend A’s birthday was coming up, and we knew she wanted a digital camera though she didn’t dare ask for it. A large group of us chipped in and raised about $200, bought a great camera in red (her favourite colour), and surprised her with it on her birthday.

Since then, we’ve surprised friends with iPods, Jewellery, Phones, and even tickets to the Australian Open.
Whenever we know a friend wants something, we make every effort to get it for them, regardless of price.
It sounds like a lot, but having 20 – 30 people chipping in $5 – $10 dollars a couple of times a year to make good friends happy isn’t nearly as hard on the wallet as it might sound.

Today, friend C, friend R and I met up at the local shopping center to buy friend T, whose birthday is coming up, some colourful jewellery we knew she’d really enjoy.

It ended up taking us almost 3 and a half hours, because we stopped to buy ourselves ice-cream cones at the food court, and ran into a few friends we stopped to talk to (and one teacher we tried to avoid). Stopping to try on bizzarre glasses and hats might also have added to how long we took, but it’s hard to say for sure.