Stone Soup by Jan Eliot for December 01, 2012

Yeah, Gramm~ I like this woman~way to go! :)

If I had to chose between Alix’s two gifts, I’d go for the magnifying glass.

Go with the magnifying glass; she’s just impatient enough that it’ll be of more use than a microscope right now. Get her the microscope in a couple of years when she wants to know why the beetle has a hard shell and how a bumblebee flies despite its tiny wings.

Get them a decent microscope, but be preared to help then learn what they’re looking at, or they’ll lose interest. Lazy, ignorant parents tied to the TV don’t spark a kid to develop many deep interests.

Did you really think that one gift per person idea would work??

In that household alone, it would mean three gifts per person. If Joan’s family were included at least another four or five for a total of seven or eight gifts person.

Easy solution? Just get a microscope kit that includes a magnifying glass! There are many such on the market!

Microscope. Magnifying glasses are for birthdays. Duh!

I’m all for the simplifying Christmas gift-giving… For adults. Kids need a sense of abundance at the darkest time of the year.

very hard to keep it at 1 gift until they are older. Also they will be getting gifts from Gramas and otheer relatives Right!

Most people are not going to be able to afford a good microscope. See if there are any youth programs through local schools or businesses that have microscopes (which has the advantage of also giving her access to a knowledgeable mentor). Buy her either a good magnifying glass or a dissecting microscope (good for a really close look at the bugs she loves).

Can’t help remembering that when I was a kid Mom would give me $5.00 to get everyone’s gifts! A necklace and scarf for her, a hankerchief and belt for Dad, some gewgaw for my friend – all done! Of course, Mom made $35.00/week when she started working at Sears.

What, they were talking about one gift only – period? I could see giving one gift to each person from each person – but all the aunts, uncles, grandmothers and parents combining to give only one gift total per child? Bah! Humbug! No matter what they do, the kids are going to be upset because the adults are changing the rules in the middle of the game. If money’s that tight, give up the $5 Starbucks three times a day and put the money in a Christmas club account at the bank…

parents always to get credit for the basics at Christmas. That is why there are underwear and tube socks for everyone wrapped under the tree.

Well, it was a good idea at the time! Dampwaffle has a good point… was it one gift per recipient or one gift per giver? Because then, one person could give her the magnifying glass and another person could give her a microscope.About the cigarettes and Starbucks though… I don’t see anyone smoking or going by the coffee shop in this strip, so those points aren’t applicable to this family. Maybe to some of us, it does apply, but then again we all make decisions that make sense to us.

I think bigbeard61 is right. Kids don’t need to be greedily raking in the loot, but one present is a bit too parsimonious. Adults and kids aren’t the same, and I don’t think the girls would appreciate the quieter, less commercial holiday in the way that adults would.

Also, microscope. I got a microscope when I was 8 or 9, and I’m sure it wasn’t a fancy one, but it was about the coolest thing ever.

At Thanksgiving the family decided that the gift exchange was a LIMIT of $5 for the white elephant gift exchange we’re having. If you want to be part of the exchange you bring a gift. It has turned Xmas exchanges into a huge family game which years later we remember the dead poinsettias, and the fight over the shiny package that ended up being candy bars.

I told my children to pick three top gifts. If I decide to get them a little extra it’s up to me.

We got our 8-year old grandson a microscope for this Christmas. It has a camera attached that can hook up to the computer. Pretty cool! We also got him a slide making kit and prepared slides to get him started. He loves to look under rocks for bugs etc – I’m sure he will like this.

Riverhawk, maybe OCCAM’S razor? The simplest solution is usually the right one?

Magnifying glass. Reaql clumsy buirning ants with a microscope… ;)

maybe what they should do is put a dollar limit per person instead of a gift limit. A good mircorscope is pretty expensive, but a magnifying glass is fairly inexpensive, put the two together and they should add up to one expensive gift for someone else.

You can get one at a pawn or antique shop.

And news today that there is a new line of jeans with a pocket made specifically for the iPhone5. ONLY $159/pr! Go with the magnifying glass. Alix is still the age where she’ll be interested in the bug under the rock (or the speedy spider!).

With little interest in science, folks should be giving them away, like nursing schools.

A better solution would be a dollar limit, not a number of gifts limit. Maybe someone’s already suggested that.

I say get both! You can get a good,cheap magnifying glass at any drug store or office supply store. The microscope? Ask Alix’s teacher where the school gets theirs,and voila! Christmas!

If you only get one gift, what goes in the stocking.