Ghost of Christmas Past: Violet's Present

I'm a present shaker, and I'll freely admit it. Over the years, I've developed figuring out what's in the box into a science. I never open the gifts ahead of time (unlike my scheming husband!), because to me, the fun is in the guessing.

As a result, my parents had to be creative. There was the box of mac & cheese tucked in with a shirt (I thought it was a puzzle), and one year they switched all the tags (and forgot to switch a couple back: I, at 16, got a Barbie, 5-year-old Mel got a too-big sweater. She cried.)

One year, though, they really got me. There was an elderly lady we drove to church, and she always gave us Spritz cookies for Christmas. And so I wasn't surprised to see, tucked way beneath the tree, a brown paper bag with "To The Brandybucks, From Violet" written in shaky writing. I left that gift and went on shaking every other package.

Christmas morning arrived, and my dad told me to open Violet's present. "Why? You open it. It's just cookies." I responded. But he insisted. And lo and behold, inside the brown bag was a present, to Hobbitsister from Santa.