Hepcat is a great one for giving gifts that are, as he says, tools. He is quite extravagant when it comes to “tools”. I should have known. Pre-marriage, he gave me a telephone for my birthday. I was just….thrilled.

But that’s when I learned about his preference for useful gifts: something that promotes creativity or ingenuity.

Hepcat will search high and low for the perfect, toolish, gift. Sure, he’s done his time at The Clay Pot, and selected beautiful rings for me. But more likely, he’s off looking for toolish gifts come Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries.

Photographic accessories, for instance, make a perfect gift, of course. Or pens. Art supplies. Musical instruments. Computer stuff. Notebooks. Kitchen appliances…

This Christmas, he gave OSFO a sewing machine. A real, live, grown-up one. She loves to sew and has been asking for one for quite some time.

Well, it was the perfect gift. Already, OSFO has learned to operate it and she was sewing late into the night (in-between bouts with her Nintendo DL, a gift from her grandpa).

Hepcat came into bed late Christmas night. “I am so proud of OSFO,” he said. “She just loves to sew.”