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Mom's sister is well off but loves to shop for presents at K-Mart. I shop at K-Mart, but I don't send my sister underwear umpteen sizes too big for her in styles she abhors. I don't buy toddler pop-beads for 16-year-old girls, and I always try to pick gifts which people will have a decent chance of liking. Aunt Zibleblorb always picked the hot pink plastic purses and tourist garb from hell. Maybe she just has horrible taste, but her presents have always boggled the mind. Every year we'd get packages filled with the most hilarious horrors you could imagine, and every year my mom sent exquisite, expensive stuffed animals, lavishly illustrated children's books, silk scarves, velvet dresses. It drove me nuts. I didn't care about the loot, but the thought which counts hurt. And it was impossible not to laugh at these packages. Presents would be wrapped in boxes for cereal or pantyhose or whatever, which had been saved for just this purpose (not bad, just funny), used, old war-horses of bows would be taped on top of wrapping paper (again, you send bizarre gifts and people will make fun of every aspect of them, even if they reuse bows themselves), and inside these presents were our aunt's surrealistic imaginations of what we might like. Although us kids were never sure if they weren't deliberately picked to be awful.
 Darn it all, I like socks.
Aunt Zigleblorb's gifts became a big joke. Sure, she meant well (well, we hope so), but she never seemed to give a hoot what we might possibly like--it was like she was fulfilling some horrid chore in the laziest, most thoughtless way imaginable. Dad and I would joke about wondering if we could save these gifts and send them back to them as gifts next year, and if it might possibly encourage them to stop sending gifts to us. I prayed they'd stop sending them when I turned 18. But these gifts are for life, apparently. In college I finally figured out how to enjoy these gifts and came up with a ritual for opening them. I'd open them as soon as I could have a friend over to witness the event. We'd open them and laugh and exchange expressions of disbelief, and generally treat them as spoof-gifts. Sometimes it was disappointing because one of her gifts would be something normal and useful like socks. But then a hot-pink plastic purse would emerge to renew my faith and please some small child somewhere who would soon benefit from the local toy donations. Over the years, Zigleblorb has lost some of her bad taste, but she's still pretty dependable and it's become a long-standing tradition for me to share the ritual opening of Zibleblorb's package. After all these years, I've grown so fond of this ritual that I'd now be quite disappointed if Aunt Zigleblorg stopped sending these packages at Christmas.
 A box of beautiful presents like this is sure to be full of great surprises, right?
Well, this year I have a digital camera and I'm going to add another dimension to my silly ritual and make a record of the darned thing. And share my ritual with all of you. Get comfortable, pull up a chair, grab a soda.
They certainly look delightful and enticing, even if my knees don't.
This evening I grabbed the camera, I grabbed Mark, and we sat by the tree and opened the package. Lo and behold, something beyond my wildest dreams is inside. Presents for Mark. Now he can be completely initiated in this ritual, getting his own bizarre gifts. My hopes were crushed as he unwrapped some perfectly nice pairs of socks. I opened one of mine and found the traditional K-Mark faux diamonds (glass) earrings and pins. It's hard to get excited about these because I think they'd be quite nice for a younger woman with more traditional tastes in jewelry. They're just part of the ritual, like the strange post-consumer boxes and re-used bows. (I re-use bows, although generally only with people I live with. It's a double-standard, really. Anyone can do it and be cool, except Aunt Zigleblorb, because her gifts are so hideous and laughable.) I have tons of these faux diamond earrings and pins, all the same, all from Aunt Zigleblorb. Just in case I lose the pairs she sent the year before, I guess.
I can scarcely bring myself to open these, they're so pretty.
Mark opened his other present and found a set of handkerchiefs. My heart plummeted. Those could actually be useful. In desperation, we fingered them. And we became ecstatic as we discovered that they were just horrid, making a thin kleenex seem like the finest silk in comparison. Yea, something at least somewhat funny. Monitor-wiping cloths, Mark decided. But as far as horrid or bizarre goes, they were pretty damned weak.
 socks in deluxe carrying case
On I went through my presents (not only Christmas presents for both of us, but also belated birthday for me and a forgotten double-belated birthday for me), giving Mark one of mine to open. Bad luck, horrid luck--there were tights (which I might actually have use for!) and they were in my size. There were socks, quite practical. At least they came in a funny plastic purse with a "Kathy Ireland Holiday Gift Set" tag on them. There was a delicious smelling votive candle in a pretty glass holder--and I really liked it. A first! It was beginning to scare me--was Aunt Zigleblorg's taste improving to the point where our ritual would be ended?
 Drat it all, I really like this!
I opened the next to last package and felt joy surge through my veins as I gazed upon the post-consumer box that was revealed as I ripped off the wrappings. Joy! Aunt Zigleblorf has gotten me a box of rifle ammunition!
(Mind you, I wrap stuff in post-consumer boxes, too, but it's just that Aunt Zigleblorf is, well, exceptionally good at choosing bizarre boxes to use and we're prone to make fun of these things in the first place because the gifts are so weird. I just can't repeat this enough lest some friend goes, "I sent something in a post-consumer box!" Yeah, well, so did I. It's a double-standard.)
We used to have our hopes dashed as small children as we'd open a fascinating product box of what we'd love, only to reveal something entirely different and disappointing, or shake in fear when we ripped off the wrappings to find that we'd received two sixty-watt lightbulbs--but no, inside were socks--phew! But this box was the best box ever. Rifle ammunition! Sure, I would have preferred .44 Special cartridges for my revolver (especially 110 grain hollow points), but finally a gift with some heart! I happily photographed it as Mark eyeballed me, wondering if I was ever going to actually open it, and if the box wasn't perhaps my favorite gift of all. What strange neon-colored plastic K-Mart delight could be nestled inside this glorious ammunition box? Finally I opened it. And to my intense disappointment discovered hair scrunchies, something I'd been meaning to buy at the grocery store since my old one's elastic is completely shot. (I have to wrap it around about 300 times to get my hair in a pony tail--something I do morning and night before washing my face. So I desperately needed a new one, but consistently forgot to add it to our grocery lists.) Here was something I not only liked but had wanted.
One box left. The double-belated birthday gift. The card made my heart sink even further. It was adorable and contained a ten dollar bill. This present was surely something I'd love, something which would mark the end of my beloved Package-Rituals. Good stuff from Aunt Zigleblorf. The horror of it all. I opened the box at last. And found a beautiful t-shirt, a t-shirt which signified life and longevity for my beloved Package-Ritual.
We all have our Christmas traditions.
 (Too bad you can't see that this is that raised foam-paint stuff.)
 the cute card I liked, sorry it's blurry
 the hair scrunchies I both needed and wanted
There is something I'd like to make clear, though. If a reader or online friend was to send me a hot-pink plastic purse, I would cherish it. Because it will always be the thought which counts most for me. Long-distance friends like this never get to see me in person and observe what I wear, what I like and dislike. They can't call my mom to pump her for information. And they've certainly not had umpity-ump years in which to try to find out what I might like, what I might hate. The thought of a hot-pink plastic purse from them is the same to me as if it was a pair of plum silk pajamas. (Although to date, my long distance friends have only gotten me things I adore. And if I ever don't like something, I won't lie about it and say I love it. I promise.) From Aunt Zigleblorb, it felt like a slap in the face, and so I developed a weird ritual to turn it into something innocuous and fun. And now I love my Ritual so much I'd hate to lose it. I'm a wretch, I know. But it's family, see? I have a pile of tiny gifts to send, and they fill me with hope for making my friends happy. But I also worry that this thing might be not to their own taste, that they might be allergic to that thing, that my gifts might end up being as clueless as Aunt Zigleblorb's. If I've messed up with choosing these gifts, please tell me so I know better next time, and please know that when I chose them I took lots of time, thought about you, and invested all my hopes for your happiness in these trinkets. If the gift doesn't please, keep the thought at least since it's sincere. But I think you'll like them. I chose really carefully although I chose within my budget. Even aside from our Package-Ritual, Mark and I laughed a lot together this evening. It felt like a Christmas Eve wedding night--we laughed and talked and joked and played and shared stuff with each other. We hugged, we snuggled on the kitchen floor (I don't remember how we ended up sitting on the floor in the kitchen--we were talking and laughing and hugging as we did stuff in there, then we were doing the same, me in his lap on the floor. Nothing sexual--just got distracted with just being together.) It's been one of those evenings where I hug myself and try to figure out how I got so lucky, how this could be real. Maybe we get times like this because we're so independent most of the time. I don't know, but it was great. I'm also short on sleep which makes me a bit silly and hyper and prone to cracking jokes--maybe that's where a lot of our laughter tonight came from. I also have a sneaking suspicion that I'm amusing to observe when I'm like this--"Check her out, hehehehe!" I am so grateful that Mark finds my jokes funny when I'm like this.
looking down from above Matsuyama Castle --Shiki
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