My boys are getting older, but that doesn’t mean they’re getting less excited about Christmas. About the only difference is the price of their gifts. We used to be able to get by with spending a couple hundred bucks on a bunch of stuff to cram underneath the tree – and even then, the boys seemed happier playing with the boxes the toys came in than the toys themselves.
Gifts have gotten more expensive as they’ve gotten older. My youngest thinks he should get a Ram 2500 for Christmas.
Not a new one, he assures me. He’d be happy with a 2015 or 2016, he tells me. I think he greatly overestimates what an outdoors show radio host makes.
He changed his tune after we took an afternoon to go hunt pheasants last weekend, though. Now he said he can wait on the truck, but he says he needs a new Browning Citori Sporting Clays 12 gauge over-and-under. For crying out loud, I’D love to have one of those. I hate to break it to the kid, but there’s no way in heck Santa’s leaving one of those under the tree, and if he does, I’m claiming it.
All of Logan’s begging for a shotgun for Christmas got me thinking about my own wish list. I’ve been fortunate enough to knock a bunch of my wish-list items off my perennial list, like the new elk rifle and a full set of matching KUIU hunting clothes. But Logan and I might be asking for the same thing this year, even though neither of us has a snowball’s chance in August of getting it. I’ve been hunting with my same old pump-action Browning BPS for all species of birds for 35 years, though, and it won’t hurt me to hunt with it for a few more.
Maybe I’m just getting old, but I actually feel like I don’t really need anything this year. I’d rather give gifts to others that make them happy. But not a Citori for Logan. I may be a lot more selfless these days, but that’s pushing it.
