Have you ever joined the Perfect Gift Holiday Quest? One year it was the Tickle Me Elmo, another it was that hot new (only available in limited quantities) gaming system. It’s always highly promoted, stingily available and requires hours of store-to-store searching or these days, online cruising to find at a decent price. And worst of all is when the few items available are all bought up, then resold at crazy high prices.

Or there’s the brainstorm gift. You know, the ‘wouldn’t it be perfect to get mom a replacement figurine like the one she loved and we broke to pieces when we were kids’ kind of gift (not that I’d ever do that… this is fiction, mom. I really don’t know how that got busted!) Yet another quest of searching, digging, hoping and craziness.

Or my favorite… the husband gift. Or for anyone that has everything, and seems impossible to please or buy for because if they wanted it, they’d already have it, right?

I’m not a big quester. Mostly because I’m lazy and hate crowds. I want to get the gift, get out of the store and wrap it up all pretty so it can decorate my tree, darn it! I’m not good at searching out bargains or finding those killer deals, if it’s there and I can afford it, yay, I’m done shopping! So usually, I try to get my holiday shopping done well before Thanksgiving, which means missing out on the hot quest-worthy toys.

Except this year. I had a late start, but was still on track to hit my done-by-Thanksgiving deadline. My niece wanted a set of fairy dolls. Easy peasy, they were on Amazon. I put them in my shopping cart, but before I hit that buy button, I needed to check on a gift for my daughter (did she or didn’t she already have her own copy of The Princess Bride). By the next day when I went back to Amazon to place that order, the fairies were no longer available. Anywhere on earth. Well, anywhere on earth for a decent price. ARGH!!! Now I’m an unwilling quester.

Interestingly enough (sorta), the heroine in my upcoming novella, A BABE IN TOYLAND had a similar quest. She’s out to get the perfect gift for her parents. Something she knows they’ll love, and even better, something that will prove that she’s doing well enough for herself to afford this fabulous gift they’ll love. But then she loses her job… and is in danger of losing her chance to get that perfect gift.

Of course, her quest involves misfit sex toys and a hot hunky hero… so I think she’s going to have a lot more fun than I will as I trudge out in the cold searching for fairies.

How about you? Have you ever done the Perfect Gift Holiday Quest? Did you find that perfect gift? Was it worth it?

Around the middle of September last year my husband and I bought a doll house for our niece from Hobby Lobby and decided to put it together for her for Christmas. We would paint it and wire it and stain the hardwood floors. It was going to be a magical bonding experience for the two of us, plus an heirloom piece for Isabella.

Only one of those was right.

What the &*^%@! was I thinking? In the first place, we’d never assembled a doll house from scratch, so planning to do it for a Christmas present in the middle of September when I am married to THE GREAT PROCRASTINATOR wasn’t very bright. When you add in the fact that we both like to be in charge, welll… You can see where this might be a problem. Also, I don’t know if any of the rest of you have ever tackled this sort of project, but good grief…hundreds of pieces. Literally. Nine pieces for each window. Gobs of fretwork that was hard to paint. Eight-hundred shingles that had to be individually stained and painstakingly adhered to the roof. Those of you familiar with roofing will understand what I mean when I say that the shingles around the gables had to be “cut in.” Hubby sliced his hand open with a box cutter doing that. Big fun. I don’t do blood. He even had to pull our kids’ teeth when they were loose. Oh, and did I mention that every single piece had to be primed before it could be painted? It did, and that was my job. But here are the results. Family members furnished the rooms for her, which made it even more special. And this one…

I got a little carried away when decorating. I shrunk down a picture of my niece and added it to the living room. Put a poster of Hannah Montana in the bedroom. Needless to say, she LOVED it. And that made it all worthwhile. And believe it or not, we’re going to do it again next year for our other niece.

What about you? Have you ever undertaken something like this? What were the results?