Belated Christmas Wishes!

Wanted to leave a brief "Merry Christmas" here on Wed, but I wound up coming home from work early and going straight to bed. One of my little chronic ailments decided to rear its ugly head on Christmas Eve.
Gratefully, I woke up feeling much better Christmas morning.
The LSH gave me a Zune. I know I'm a little late coming to the party on these things, but here I am. I had no idea these things do so much. I'm going to have to have one of my young nieces come over and show me what to do.
We do a secret Santa with all the adults in Mike's family. Names are drawn on Thanksgiving. You can either go in as a individual or as a couple; Mike & I always do the couple thing. Then the sis-in-law who oversees all this asks everyone to send her their wishlist and she will get it to their Secret Santa.
Mike & I didn't submit a wishlist, so a few days before Christmas, our Secret Santa called desperately looking for some idea of what she should get us. Mike was on the phone with her and he's asking me what we want; I shrugged my shoulders because I really couldn't think of anything. I finally said to tell her to take whatever she was going to spend and donate it to one of our favorite charities.
Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as materialistic as any red-blooded American. But, the things I would have on my wishlist, my Secret Santa couldn't afford. For instance,

- a new car (with no car payments). My car is almost 8 years old. I love my car (dubbed the "Putt-Putt" by the LSH) and it's been very reliable so far, but it's showing its age (much like its owner). We've been trying to only have one car payment at a time. So we have about 2 1/2 more years left on Mike's car; once his is paid off, then it's my turn. So far, this plan has worked. Hope it continues.
- a new, larger house (with no mortgage payments). Again, we are very fortunate that we own (along with the bank) our own home. It's small, but big enough for the LSH, the dog and me. But it's old. Over the years, previous owners have changed and updated it, so it's actually kind of cute. It's a very casual house. Being as we live at The Shore, we have a beach theme pretty much throughout.
So now I'm going to sound very greedy, but I've never had a brand new house. So, if I were to make a true wishlist, a new house (preferably with a wrap-around porch) would be on it.

So, you can see I am not altruistic at all. I just thought donating to a charity would be better than just going out and buying something for the sake of buying. As it turned out, Secret Santa went to the charity's website to donate and they've taken down the area where you used to be able to donate online. I don't quite understand why. So, she got us a gift card for the restaurant where we were married.
That was thoughtful and we will definitely be using it.