Relaxation in a Box

Many gifts arrived in a single box today for Misty, from Chicago, Illinois. Immediately upon arrive home, Misty tore into the package.

Inside, she found a number of items, including a fantastic mug - thrown by its giftor, fragrant loose leaf teas, a bath bomb, hot chocolate mix, a choice paperback, and two spice mixes from a Chicago shop (sender gets extra points for sending regional goods).

The first mix is Latino, the second Irish. If there's not a story behind the selection, Misty and I had a good chuckle over them, anyway.

I'ma call it: Another gift impeccably planned, and graciously received!

Coffee Makes His Beard Fall Off

The below gift was received by my friend Chana, the Episcopal seminarian. On Facebook, Chana writes, "Just got my Secret Santa gift in the mail and it's getting lots of attention and laughs! It's just irreverent enough to incite sighs of jealousy from the rest of the seminary crowd."

Add hot coffee...

Seems to me this is a TAPGE slam dunk.

"How's it sit? Pretty cunning, don'tcha think?"

Following an advance letter, the first gift of the exchange landed yesterday in Oklahoma, at the dwelling of my science-fiction-obsessed friend Kerry. Upon first glance, it's just a hat... but, a gal walks down the street in that hat, people know she's not afraid of anything.

Below are the hat, the advance letter (to be opened after Kerry opened her gift), and the sender's card.

If you don't get it (it took me a minute) it's a replica of Jayne's hat, a must have for Firefly diehards. Judging from Kerry's immediate posting to Facebook, and her single line e-mail comment to me, "[M]y gift arrived and it is FANTASTIC!" she got the reference.

I'm so glad this gift was so well received! I hope it's the beginning of a trend. To all participants, if you'd like to share your gift with the internet, feel free to send me pics, videos, and/or prose exultation when you receive your gift exchange present.

Ship Day is Almost Here!

A friendly reminder to all gift exchange participants, ship day is December 16th. One participant has already sent the above advance letter to his match.

The Concept

Here's the deal: I recently signed up for the reddit gift exchange and was matched with a total dud, and I thought to myself, "why can't I ever get paired with an awesome secret santa?" Word on the street is, I'm not alone. So, I've decided to organize The Amazing People Gift Exchange. Everyone receiving this e-mail has been hand picked my me, all invitees are amazing people who I either hang with on a regular basis, or frequently "like" my Facebook posts. Most invitees are amazing, independent, trailblazing women, the rest are men.

Here's how it works: If you would like to participate in The Amazing People Gift Exchange, let me know by replying to this e-mail, please include your mailing address and a self description (doesn't have to be a resume, just say something honest, feel free to get existential - or not). When I roll out of bed on December 2nd, I will enter participant information into an Excel spreadsheet and begin making matches. If there is an even number of participants, everyone will be paired up (pairs exchange gifts), if the number is odd, everyone will be given different names (giftors will not be receiving gifts from their giftee, but rather another individual). In matching participants, I will do my best to match gift givers to people they've never met, but with whom I believe they share common interests. Once matches are made, I will send participants their match's name, mailing address, descriptions, and screenshots of their Facebook pages, if available. Use your internet skills to research your match and select an appropriate gift. Please send all gifts by December 16th.

Gifts needn't be expensive, only thoughtful.

Make sense?