Birthday and Christmas Combined Gifts

I often felt a bit cheated by having my birthday fall close to Christmas. As a child, I felt like my birthday got celebrated less than my friends' birthdays because my day got drowned out by the din of holidays plus two other December birthdays in my family. And then there was the combined gift. That's a gift that someone gives you for BOTH your birthday and Christmas. Sometimes it was bigger than a normal birthday gift, but often I got the feeling that the giver just didn't want to bother with buying two things for me.

Frank's birthday was even closer to Christmas than mine, plus since his birthday fell AFTER Christmas, so he'd get toys that were less than desirable: the left-overs after Christmas shoppers had gone through the store and bought the best items.

But this year Frank decided to buy himself a new TV as a combined Christmas-birthday gift for himself. He could justify it by needing a larger and sharper screen to read the subtitles. I decided to ask for a combined gift too -- a new laptop. The old one didn't have enough memory for some applications.

In the photo, my new toy is dwarfed by the television, but I'm thrilled to have it.