One of Madison's presents this year will take a long time to open up. We were sitting by the fire this morning, wrapping presents - although Daddy was just wrapping one. Over and over again.
This will be the first mega-wrap experience for Madison, so Daddy's kind of excited about it. This sort of thing used to be fairly common place though - we were mega-wrapping people's presents in high school. One Christmas in particular, Daddy exchanged gifts with a good friend and it took us both about twenty minutes to get to the actual gift. This was during class too, with everyone looking on.
But the mega-wrapping theme sort of grew out of fashion for a time. After all, if it is expected, then where's the fun in that? So we went through more elaborate attempts to make it difficult to get into a gift. One gift was inside a hard coating of plaster. We had to drop it off a two story building over a parking lot to open that one. Tiny needles pointing outward made it difficult to open another present, which had to be handled with care.
Then came the burying. One present was buried somewhere in White County, and the recipient of the gift was given a map, and directions on how to get there. This evolved to a more distant location next, which eventually made the leap to the scavenger hunt system, where the recipient was forced to go from one point to the next, finally getting his gift at the final destination, usually someone's house. The ultimate next point, however, came one summer when we actually got into a car and drove to Kansas. Our friend was following his map, going from one point to the next, when all of the sudden, the next part of the scavenger hunt told him to drive to a rest stop in Kansas.
We never thought he'd actually go to get it. But along came Daddy's birthday. And all he got was a video tape. So he plugged in the tape, and at the birthday party with everyone around, Daddy was utterly shocked to see that not only did he go to Kansas to get his gift, he also left one for me - in Colorado!
So about two years later, we actually made the trip out to Colorado - and yes, the present was still there. It was a statue of Maleficent, a nice gift in itself. But all along, the point of these has always been the experience in getting the gifts. Since then, presents have been left in places like Key West or Hungry Mother State Park. And the recipient is always left with an epic journey to retrieve the gift, usually with some of the same friends that snuck the thing out there to begin with.
Even this, though, had it's limitations. The next logical step would be international travel, as the gifts would get further and further away - and more difficult to recover.
So rather than take the gift giving in that direction, we chose other ideas instead. At one point, we decided to "get to know" White County a bit better. We obtained a map, and buried twenty-five items at twenty-five different places. We gave one of our friends a map with the twenty-five places, and told him that one of those places had a big gift. All the other places had game pieces that read "GAME OVER, PLEASE TRY AGAIN." In our defense, these other places also had some loose change to help pay for gas. Eventually, that friend did find his gift, and several other game pieces. But to this day, buried in many places of White County, there are game pieces wrapped and sealed with plastic and a few coins, each one saying, "GAME OVER, PLEASE TRY AGAIN."
There have been many prank gifts since then - too many to list. A Beholder-themed party tops the most obscure of themes. But there was also the year of Hexxen. This game for the N64 was fairly dark and mundane, and certainly not anything I would voluntarily purchase. Which made it perfect fodder for a year of jokes involving this game. The highlight would have to be the time we gave one friend a cartridge of a game he actually wanted - and yet we were able to switch out the data chip inside the cartridge. We replaced the good game with - you guessed it: "Hexxen." He didn't discover this until the next morning when he went to plug in the game he was wanting to play, only to discover it was Hexxen.
So back to today. Or, at least Christmas Day coming up: Madison will experience her first mega-wrapping moment. I can't wait!
This will be the first mega-wrap experience for Madison, so Daddy's kind of excited about it. This sort of thing used to be fairly common place though - we were mega-wrapping people's presents in high school. One Christmas in particular, Daddy exchanged gifts with a good friend and it took us both about twenty minutes to get to the actual gift. This was during class too, with everyone looking on.
But the mega-wrapping theme sort of grew out of fashion for a time. After all, if it is expected, then where's the fun in that? So we went through more elaborate attempts to make it difficult to get into a gift. One gift was inside a hard coating of plaster. We had to drop it off a two story building over a parking lot to open that one. Tiny needles pointing outward made it difficult to open another present, which had to be handled with care.
Then came the burying. One present was buried somewhere in White County, and the recipient of the gift was given a map, and directions on how to get there. This evolved to a more distant location next, which eventually made the leap to the scavenger hunt system, where the recipient was forced to go from one point to the next, finally getting his gift at the final destination, usually someone's house. The ultimate next point, however, came one summer when we actually got into a car and drove to Kansas. Our friend was following his map, going from one point to the next, when all of the sudden, the next part of the scavenger hunt told him to drive to a rest stop in Kansas.
We never thought he'd actually go to get it. But along came Daddy's birthday. And all he got was a video tape. So he plugged in the tape, and at the birthday party with everyone around, Daddy was utterly shocked to see that not only did he go to Kansas to get his gift, he also left one for me - in Colorado!
So about two years later, we actually made the trip out to Colorado - and yes, the present was still there. It was a statue of Maleficent, a nice gift in itself. But all along, the point of these has always been the experience in getting the gifts. Since then, presents have been left in places like Key West or Hungry Mother State Park. And the recipient is always left with an epic journey to retrieve the gift, usually with some of the same friends that snuck the thing out there to begin with.
Even this, though, had it's limitations. The next logical step would be international travel, as the gifts would get further and further away - and more difficult to recover.
So rather than take the gift giving in that direction, we chose other ideas instead. At one point, we decided to "get to know" White County a bit better. We obtained a map, and buried twenty-five items at twenty-five different places. We gave one of our friends a map with the twenty-five places, and told him that one of those places had a big gift. All the other places had game pieces that read "GAME OVER, PLEASE TRY AGAIN." In our defense, these other places also had some loose change to help pay for gas. Eventually, that friend did find his gift, and several other game pieces. But to this day, buried in many places of White County, there are game pieces wrapped and sealed with plastic and a few coins, each one saying, "GAME OVER, PLEASE TRY AGAIN."
There have been many prank gifts since then - too many to list. A Beholder-themed party tops the most obscure of themes. But there was also the year of Hexxen. This game for the N64 was fairly dark and mundane, and certainly not anything I would voluntarily purchase. Which made it perfect fodder for a year of jokes involving this game. The highlight would have to be the time we gave one friend a cartridge of a game he actually wanted - and yet we were able to switch out the data chip inside the cartridge. We replaced the good game with - you guessed it: "Hexxen." He didn't discover this until the next morning when he went to plug in the game he was wanting to play, only to discover it was Hexxen.
So back to today. Or, at least Christmas Day coming up: Madison will experience her first mega-wrapping moment. I can't wait!
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