Christmas Monkey Business

Despite all of the chaos, though,  April still found time to be sneaky in preparing the present she had in mind for me.  And what would Christmas be without a little monkey business?  I mean really.

My gift from April was the giant sock monkey and the outfit he’s wearing in the pictures on the right.

A while back, April and I were talking and, some how or another, we got to talking about sock monkeys.  I think we had been looking at the ThinkGeek catalog and saw one in there.  Who knows.  Anyway, I mentioned that I had never had one as a child, and that I thought they were pretty cool.

About two weeks ago, April & I were at Meijers, and happened to walk past a display full of giant sock monkeys.  I almost bought one right there, but decided not to.  Well, that obviously got the wheels turning in April’s head.

So, while she was doing her Christmas shopping last week, she returned to Meijers and bought the giant sock monkey.

Then during one of our nightly phone calls while I’m at work, she asked for the link to the CafePress store that I had told her about previously.  I gave it to her and didn’t think anything of it.

And that’s where the real monkey business begins.  April went to the site and swiped the logo off of one of the products.  She had to edit the image a bit to get three different sizes, and then moved them into Word, and printed the images onto t-shirt transfer paper. Those were then applied to the front of the t-shirt, and the front and back of the hat.

As you can see, April also drew little red and white hearts on the hat.  What makes those special is that red side is a finger print.  She dipped her finger in the paint and kind of wiped it across the heart.  Those hearts symbolize both the fact that I do have a heart that’s literally broken and the aftermath of a blood glucose test.

I must say that I am really touched by the thoughtfulness and thoroughness of this gift.  It’s not only cute and fun, but it also connects to something very near and dear to me.

I appreciate the time and effort that went into putting this together.  It is the thought behind the gift that really counts, and I so appreciate that this gift truly came from the heart.

Thanks April! <3