GIFTING "BY THE BOOK"

Daughter Melody wanted to make this Christmas' giving more "interesting". She suggested we choose a theme, and build our gifts around it, and supplied us with some possibilities, including gifts of a certain color, or having to do with a book, while not necessarily being a book.

Her sisters and I kind of cheated. We bought our gifts, and then thought of a book that could be the basis for it. For example, my son-in-law has been wanting to get into canning, as he's quite the gardener. I got him a waterbath canner and set a mug with fishing lures printed on it in the bottom (he's also a fisher), and said the book was "The Old Pan and The Sea". (All right, all right. I know it's lame!)

It became clear that we didn't "get" what Melody had been talking about when we opened our gifts from her.

Our first gift was a book:


We were instructed to read it aloud. After a couple of pages, we found a sticky note. It said to open Gift #2.


We had reached the page that said a moose with a muffin was likely to want homemade jam to got with it. The second gift was a recipe for Lemon Raspberry Spread, and the ingredients to make it.

A few pages later, another sticky note, saying to open Gift #3, on a page saying a trip to the store was going to be necessary, for which the moose would require a sweater. A black sweater was the third gift.


Gift #4 went with a page saying the moose would ask for socks:


The book finally comes full circle. The moose needs a muffin!


I absolutely loved our gifts!

And the idea, too. So next year, we're going to go with the book theme again. That is, Melody's sisters and I will. Melody says she'll do the demonstration for 2010's theme: a gift based on a Wiki-How. That's good, because I have no more idea how that would work than how the book theme did!

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