The best gift

I was in the kitchen of our office at lunchtime and overheard someone talking about giving gifts. She said that there just wasn't enough time to go shopping for some of her relatives for Christmas and she had resorted to making up packages of useful things (as she thought of them) and giving those instead. She got things like bottles of household cleaners, useful tools for the kitchen and things like that and wrapped them up as Christmas presents. She heard nothing but praise for the gifts. She said that next year, she was going to do more of that.

It reminded me of when I bought my first house. I was an old house that needed a LOT of work. I threw a house-warming party and got lots of nice gifts but the best ones were the useful gifts. I got a portable light with a clamp that I could position where I needed it. And I got a small copper pipe cutter. I tried using a hacksaw on the pipes (as I saw in a do-it-yourself book) but the edges were always rough and didn't join correctly. The pipe cutter made a nice, clean cut and I didn't need to clean the cut nearly as much as I had to when using a hacksaw. The clamp light came in useful in many situations and not all of them related to working around the house.

I don't remember what other gifts I got at that house warming but I'll never forget the light and the pipe cutter.