Advice from a Small Town Girl

The annual Quilt Club Christmas Dinner was held last night. This event has been going on for more years than I've lived here, and for those of us with the quilting bug, it's a lot of fun. Not to mention a pretty darn good meal.

We visit, play games, eat, exchange "fat quarters" by means of another game, eat dessert, show off our "Christmas Challenge" entries, exchange Secret Sister gifts and show off the quilts we've completed or are working on..

As I said, it's a lot of fun.

Oh, and we "reveal" our Secret Sister identities.

That's a real problem for me this year.

Because I am, I believe, quite possibly the very worst Secret Sister in the history of the world. Here it is, December already, and I've only managed to give my Secret Sister two gifts all year. They were nice gifts, but that's not the point.

I can make all the excuses I want to, ranging from "I've been so busy with the shop," to "I'm an airhead," but what it comes down to is this: I failed.

I am simply not good Secret Sister material.

According to the women currently attempting to shape the program, we are supposed to be angels.

Their guidelines say that we should be, at the very least, doing something nice for our Secret Sisters every month. They even included a very helpful list of holidays to assist us in our endeavor.

Never mind that I completely missed May, June, July, August and October this year. In fact, I'm not sure they actually happened.

Oh, my.

I appreciate the idea of an ongoing program of appreciation.

I really do.

But there's something just a teeny bit Stepford-ish about such an organized program.

It makes me want to shout out that I am an independent-minded woman and I will participate in the way that makes sense to me. It's a little bit like my philosophy about customer service. I prefer to be allowed to browse on my own, and if I require assistance, I'll ask for it. I frequently forget that there are many customers in the world who prefer a bit more interaction.

At any rate, right up to the time they distributed the sign-up sheets last night, I was planning to skip the Secret Sister exchange next year.

I changed my mind.

Because none of this, whether it be the Secret Sister exchange or life in general, requires that we be perfect.

Or that we be anything other than what we are.