“I wrapped all these.” 

 
I get obsessive about Christmas, with the focus almost entirely on the presents. It hits my buttons. I think that other people perceive the giving of presents as a social ritual that helps to create a bond between people. I perceive presents as little fun bombs meant to entertain people, and I like matching up presents with people. A result of this is that I give presents to people I don’t know well, and I don’t subscribe to the belief that you are expected to give presents to some people. Continuing with the fun bomb analogy, I like the idea of a bombardment, where a group of people unwrap presents at roughly the same time.

For my cousin Graham, who married an American lady and moved to Minneapolis, I gave a box wrapped in plain grey paper with a little square of white paper on it that simply said “Gray”. Inside was a Coffee Crisp, date squares, a Kinderduden egg and butter tart. I never explained this to him.

Here is the Oak Games stocking stuffer suggestions. I put trinkets and candies into walnut shells and gave them, as well as other things like the gnome bowling and rattlesnake eggs, to an impoverished family. I also slipped in the dragon and the leprechaun into two books from a series *cough* Twilight *cough* and gave them to my nieces. And how did all this go? I don’t know. Nobody tells me anything. I’m not sure what to make of the rattlesnake eggs – kind of an odd thing for Christmas – but I know that they can work nicely. One lady wound up beating it with a broom when it rattled the kids. The next year I did the walnut thing again, filling them only with candies (and walnuts) and gave them to my neices. This idea, a subset of the original idea, probably wound up looking cuckoo. I’m not sure how it was perceived because nobody tells me anything.

A few years back I anonymously left a coded message where you have to figure out the letter substitution (what do they call these things?) on my boss’s desk on Christmas. It contained in jokes, and led to a prize of Werther’s candies. She had once received a snail mail letter from someone in jail for god knows what, and this had contained a letter substitution puzzle which she gleefully decrypted. Mine, however, was totally ignored – this tells you how much charisma I have – and the Werthers were randomly found by management months later in a plant pot.

Am I the only person who would want to see a pot of gold full of loonies? A friend of mine and his wife lent me money back when I was unemployed. Last year, Dec. 2010, I arrived at their place as a surprise visit after not seeing them for years. They got a gold Christmas card, including a thank you for when they helped me out when I was down. There was a present wrapped in gold paper. The present was a fairly small clay pot containing 200 loonies, topped with a layer of the gold-wrapped chocolate coins, which look better. 200 loonies takes up a lot less space than you think. There was also a mountie quarter and a foreign coin in there to make their kid happy, and a lottery ticket, roughly consistent with the colour scheme, on the bottom of the pot. There was also a second present, the Pot of Gold chocolates, wrapped in a different gold paper.

 


 
This year I gave my sister a drinking experience. There were green cups made of clay made by my dad, each with a bottle of Ackee stuffed into it. There were two bottles of Lela’s Mauby syrup, one bottle of Peardrax and one bottle of the elusive Ginseng Up original flavour. All these happen to be Caribbean drinks. There were also some nice metal spiral coasters. All this was jammed into a shoebox with careful padding, and the wrapped present managed to survive being shipped to Banff. You can find out more about these drinks from the exotic non-alcoholic drinks post, for which there is a follow up post coming.

This year I gave a couple of presents which were a box of fancy coconut-oriented sweets, which I wrapped these in sheets of normal white paper.

I showed up at my friend’s place again, Mr. Pot of Gold, and gave his kid one of the Kikkerland wind up toys. I also left a couple of ornaments on their tree which they would not have noticed until I left. Once they look closer they will find that one of them is actually a wood puzzle.

 

 
One last thing: Last year I came up with the idea of a Box of Bacchanal, not technically part of Christmas. I put things that I like in a cardboard box, then “opened” it *at one time*. This was mostly my beloved beverages, but there was some new clothing, some chocolates, and the Victor’s Legacy 3inQ comic. I opened the box just after Christmas, after all that family stuff and before I got back to work, so I tossed in select items from Christmas. The Victor’s Legacy is a nice comic, well done. It starts off slowly and mysteriously, but toward the end there is a big battle that actually works.

What would you put in your Box of Bacchanal? This is a very personal decision, but here are some suggestions:
- That junk food that you like
- New clothing
- An object
- Something printed.
- DVD or download