As you maneuver your way around this blog you’ll learn a couple things. Al and I love food and wine, we enjoy making our way around the area to events and places we haven’t been, and we also come from the same town in NY. What you probably don’t know yet is that we grew up 10 minutes from one another and met in 6th grade English class. That whole story can wait for now, we’ll tell you in a few weeks. 

Last Christmas season, I noticed Al’s Facebook message said something about almost sleeping through the Syracuse Basketball game. I honestly couldn’t think of something more awful at the time, so I responded to the message. Well, believe it or not that message is really what started everything. We talked on Facebook for nearly two hours that night. When we finally had to call it quits we decided to exchange numbers and would do our best to see each other over the Christmas week.

We sent some text messages back and forth, mostly me nagging my way into a meeting or response, until she ended up sick as could be the week of her play, “The Man Who Came To Dinner”. While we were talking, I came to realize the only chance I might get to see her would be if I went to this play. I was already driving up to NY around the final weekend of performances and could easily swing by, sit through the play, say hi to her, then head to my sister’s place before going home the following morning. The plan was set. The one thing I needed now was a small gift to accompany me to her performance.

There are so many gifts that you can get for someone, of the opposite sex, that you’ve also been flirting with for the past several weeks (and possibly asked out in 6th grade but were rejected). That said, there are several more gifts that you should never buy for this person. Through texting with Al, yes we texted, I asked her if she could pick any book from childhood to today, what would she say was her favorite. She went on to tell me about Gone with the Wind, and how it wasn’t just her favorite book but she had a movie poster, loved the film, and could recite several lines already. I highly recommend books as initial gifts if you need to get noticed and your foot in the door. It’ll show you paid attention to them and not just a random gift that anyone could buy.

The first gift I bought Al was a first edition copy of Gone with the Wind and gave it to her after her performance about a week prior to Christmas. To put it lightly, it went over very well. I slid a letter in the back of the book that probably helped me in getting our first date a couple days later. Thankfully this letter resulted in us seeing each other again, and it didn’t include the term “circle yes or no”. Obviously she won’t be getting a book from me this year and in addition to the Nintendo she already received she knows what this year’s gift is already. Can’t be full of surprises every year.

Are there any gifts that you’ve received or gave that you’ll never forget?

-Scott