The only part of the season that I really looked forward to was going to church and going to my brother’s house for Christmas. If you want to count Thanksgiving as part of the holiday season, then I also looked forward to going to my Mom’s house for Thanksgiving, too.

However, there was one thing that made my eyes open wide and get really excited about the whole gift-giving part of Christmas. So, for your reading pleasure, here’s the brief story of the gift that caught my eye last winter and made my otherwise dreary holiday season pretty bright!

When you cut right down to it, I think that most of the people on this planet are nerds in one form or another. Sure, you might not have a pocket protector and yeah, you might not have glasses held together by masking tape, but chances are that there is something on this planet that you “geek out” over. When I suggest that you “geek out” over something, I’m talking about the type of reaction that you have when your favorite baseball team wins the World Series, when your favorite football team wins the Super Bowl, when you win your fantasy football league, etc. For some, it’s the type of reaction that you have when the extended editions of all three Lord of the Rings movies get released on Blu-Ray (with extras!).

Sometime last winter I was browsing around the internet and I came across a website with a simple name: Authentic Post Office Box Door Coin Banks. For the life of me, I can’t remember what brought me to that website. I think I was looking at a list on some website that talked about “cool gifts for men” or something like that – who knows? Anyway, I saw the coin bank fashioned from some wood and an old post office box door that was offered on this website and immediately I started geeking out over it. Go ahead, click over there and take a look and then come back and finish reading this post. I’ll wait…

Back? Did you go take a look? Good! It’s a pretty cool coin bank, right? Anyway, back to the story…

My family and I use Elfster.com for our Christmas shopping. It’s a good deal because you just post stuff that you want for Christmas and then your family buys it for you. Assuming everyone understands how the process works, you’re pretty much guaranteed to get exactly what you want for Christmas each year and you can even provide details on what customization that you want on your gifts. This year on Elfster the first gift I put on my Christmas list was the coin bank. I even left detailed instructions on which size coin bank I wanted and what number I wanted on the post office box door.

And last week on Christmas day, guess what I got?

How sweet is that? Come on! Look at the new coin bank as it stands next to the old plastic chocolate covered peanut jar that I’ve been using for the last few years:

There’s no comparison! And there’s the point of this update – that this coin bank, for some reason, makes me geek out and managed to bring some happiness to my otherwise “blech” holiday season. I don’t know why and I can’t explain it. I don’t know why I think this coin bank is the coolest thing ever. But when it caught my eye last winter, I bookmarked the page and said, “I need one of these things as soon as possible!”

If you have a guy in your family and you have no idea what to buy him for Christmas (or any holiday for that matter), then I strongly suggest getting him one of these coin banks. Maybe it’ll give him a geek out moment or a helping of the holiday spirit just like it gave me!

But my aggravation this morning comes from the Bank of America. You see, once upon a time I opened up a credit card account with a group whose name I can’t remember now. Then that group was purchased by a company called MBNA. Then MBNA was purchased by the Bank of America. And thus I have a credit card with the Bank of America. In general, I don’t have many complaints about the Bank of America, but I think in their attempt to do the right thing, they’ve managed to bring me some added aggravation.

Apparently, some Bank of America credit card numbers were compromised the other day and the bank did the right thing by immediately eliminating those account numbers and issuing new ones. However, they didn’t send the new credit cards out until yesterday. Why the delay? Yes, I understand that these cards needed to be printed and shipped (and, hopefully, checked for accuracy along the way). Yet, this delay in sending the new credit cards has left me here on Tuesday morning with a credit card that doesn’t work (the old one with the old number). This wouldn’t be a problem except for the fact that I intend to use my credit card this Friday night. And since my official mailing address is in North Jersey while I live in Central Jersey, I am now faced with the problem of getting this credit card into my little hands before Friday night when I have a packed schedule for the rest of the week.

So – like I said earlier – Bank of America did the right thing by having a new credit card issued, but dropped the ball by not sending the replacement card much earlier than yesterday. That’s okay, though. It’s good to know that at least one bank out there is trying to do the right thing by its customers.

If you don’t know already, TD Bank merged the TD Banknorth and Commerce Bank databases last week and it stunted the bank’s ability to post transactions to customers’ online accounts or for those transactions to be viewed at ATMs. Factor in that the folks at TD Bank decided to do this during a time of the month when almost every once of their customers gets paid or receives their government subsidy and, well, you can understand the uproar.

Some TD Bank supporters out there might suggest that technical glitches happen every once in a while and I can appreciate that statement. However, when a bank decides to make such a major switch during a time of the month when people are receiving paychecks and governments subsidies (plus when rent or the mortgage payment is due), that tells me that the bank doesn’t care enough to know about their customers’ daily lives. Something tells me that the move from Cherry Hill to Toronto really destroyed the true relationship that TD Bank had with its customers.

Anyway, I went over to Central Jersey Bank on Friday and opened up a totally free checking account. Central Jersey Bank (although it was just purchased by OceanFirst Bank) is based out of the Monmouth/Ocean county area. Because this bank is based out of the same area where I live, there is a greater likelihood that I’ll be more than just an account number and a deposit at Central Jersey Bank. In fact, after reviewing the offers from Central Jersey Bank, I’ve decided to explore other accounts that I can close at TD Bank (including those related to my fraternity and its alumni association) and move over to Central Jersey Bank.

I’m a big believer that when you go to a restaurant and you receive stellar service, that you leave a stellar tip. On the other hand, I also believe that when you are the customer and you receive horrendous service you vote with your dollars by pulling them from the company giving you the terrible service. TD Bank really screwed up. Between the bungled online transactions, their recent message to all business account owners that they were raising fees, and the continuing fee that I have to pay if my account ever dips below a certain amount (this is for a supposedly “free” checking account, by the way) – I’ve decided to vote with my dollars and leave TD Bank.

I suggest that any former Commerce Bank customers who are disgusted at the level of service offered by TD Bank do the same.

This morning, I went to the Merrick Farm and picked up my half share of the week’s bounty. I picked up a bunch of interesting looking produce – some of which I know what to do with, some of which I have no idea. I’m going to take some time this morning and make a gigantic salad out of our existing produce from the farm. The new stuff I’m just going to “bank” at the bottom of the fridge in the crisper. Then I’ll be spending a portion of today down in Belmar at a friend’s barbecue.

My goal is to spend this evening relaxing. I’ve had pretty active, hectic weekends for the last few weeks and next weekend I’ll be in Nashville so relaxing will be a nice change of pace!

In the mean time, come on down to the shore!