Back in the fall, when Christmas was looming large, I started trying to help Joseph pick out a gift for Raymond.  Joseph is…well, he’s….picky.  And opinionated.  Huhn…wonder where he gets that from?  Best to get started early, ’cause at the last minute the two of us would be locked in an epic battle of wills over finding the perfect gift.  We take holidays very seriously here at Living a Disney Life.

I started looking around at some of my favorite online shopping sites and throwing out ideas via text message or during the occasional phone call.  Have you tried recently to communicate by phone with an 18 year old male away at school?  If not, let me tell you there’s a lot of silence and monosyllabic answers.

So, anyway, I described a wide variety of gift options and put them to the test:  “Well? what about that one?” – every question was met with a grunt (or no reply at all by text).  I took that as a no and kept looking.  Purely by coincidence I stumbled upon some interesting art.  Disney art – well, technically, art based on Disney, but one picture in particular caught my eye – a Mary Poppins movie-themed print that was appealing in its simplicity.  Hmmm – could I have found THE gift?  After so much rejection I was about to tell Mr. Picky-pants to go it alone and shop solo for his Dad’s present.

Screen shot included in the next text – I waited for yet another rejection…what?  Could it be?  He loved it!  So, knowing better than to hesitate during such a moment, I placed the order.  Joseph was home for semester break when the package arrived and we carefully opened the box and slid out the contents – even better in person than it was in the picture.  The colors are muted, but match our décor perfectly.  We both just stood there staring at it for a moment – then I noticed Joseph was smiling and realized he was imagining how happy his dad would be with this gift.  And Raymond loves the picture every bit as much as we’d hoped he would.  The Mary Poppins picture now hangs prominently in our foyer.

What do you buy the hard-to-shop-for Disney fan? What’s one of your favorite Disney gifts?