Desires List: Christmas Gift Ideas

In my family, Christmas has always been a big deal.  Not for the religious meanings, or the gift giving, but for the traditions.  We love gathering, and Christmas is always a season of fun and celebration for us, especially as we are all teachers in some form, so have some extended break over the holiday season.  With marriages and children, our family keeps getting bigger and as a result, our big gathering is every second year.  This is that year.

Over the past few years, again due to the enlarging family size (as you can see above), we have begun to draw names so the siblings and spouses are assigned two others for whom to buy gifts.  One year, we made gifts. Fun and interesting to find where everyone's talent is, but apparently not a tradition worth carrying forward in the eyes of the majority.  So, this year we picked names, but also a letter of the alphabet.  The gifts we purchase must begin with that letter.  The good part is that we pulled letters and names on Thanksgiving weekend.  The bad part is the letter I pulled.  I can only imagine that everyone else pulled equally challenging letter, so I am going to save them a headache by writing a list.  Okay, we have always written lists, but this one will be longer and start with a greater variety of letters.  In fact, as a personal challenge, I will attempt to write one idea for each letter of the alphabet.  Some may think this is overkill, or perhaps a bit greedy, but I know from my birthday experience this year that my family actually reads my desires list and buys gifts from it, so I would like to think that I'm simply giving them some options.  Here goes:

A- afternoon tea (like we did for my birthday a few years ago) with you!
B- baking sheet(thank you, Ute); books
C- Chapter's - love everything in the store; canvases, any size for painting
D- date night babysitter...this could start with the letter of the month you can do it
E- big elastics for my hair
F- Fluevogs (just dreaming here)
G- gift certificate of any kind
H- horseback riding lesson(s) (thank you me!), homemade anything, especially Christmas decorations
I- iPod connector so I can listen to it in the car - we don't have a tape or CD player (thank you Derran)
J- jewelry of any kind - earrings, long necklaces, bracelets
K- knitting paraphernalia
L- lasagne pan (deep, big) (thank you Kel and Mom and Dad); loose tea
M- magazine subscription (Canadian Living? Canadian Family?), tea mug for travel (thank you Savanna)
N- nice silk scarf to keep me warm and fashionable :)
O- opportunity to do something off your desires list with you
P- paragliding; pashmina - black; pregnant Paverpol statue
Q- quilting class at Spool of Thread
R- recipes, your favourites; rubber scoop for slow cooker; anything from R & W Co.; rotary cutter (sewing)
S- stove top kettle, silver clip barrettes to hold my hair during basketball; self-healing cutting mat (table size)
T- tickets to a Premier League or World Cup soccer game (not serious as a gift, just as a desire)
U- unique (not necessarily new) story from our childhood, written down for posterity
V- vin rouge
W- Wimbledon tickets (okay, again not realistic, but had to write it down); weekly menu pad for the fridge (thank you Kyle, Ryan and Odette); water bottle for the car
X- exciting night out...remember, it's the night out, not that activity that is exciting! (our rules didn't specify the letter had to be at the beginning of the word, did they?)
Y- yarn
Z- zzzzz...yes, if you could figure out how to get me more sleep ins, it would be a gift indeed