My mom is super creative. Her brain is a marvel and I personally think there should be a section in a museum dedicated to her poems and creations. Maybe someday.
In the meantime, I will just be the beneficiary of many of her awesome antics. Many years ago she created a fun poem for a gift exchange. All the gifts are wrapped in paper of red, green, or white with bows of those three colors as well. The poem has many stanzas and for each one, a person is instructed to pick up gifts or trade them, or possibly even lose them. It is really fun.
She always does the gift exchange for her family in Washington. I've been there a couple times and had a lot of fun. She even did it for us once here in Utah. They were smaller items since there are so many of us, but it was fun to open the gifts at the end and see what you get. (Oh, it isn't one of those games where you open and then steal others gifts. There is no opening until the very end and then you may exchange with others if you like.)
My mom had been thinking about doing the gift exchange for us, but I told her we didn't need a lot of little items wandering around the house. (I get that the dollar store is great for quantity, but not so much for quality.) She agreed and I didn't think much more about it.
Later, a box arrived with a considerable number of packages inside. My mom explained that I told her once that if she sent something edible, it would get eaten at our house. So she sent the gift exchange with all EDIBLE gifts. What a fun idea.
The tree in Carnegie (which usually has no presents) looked like a bona fide tree this year. I was a little concerned that Nova might investigate the gifts, but she never got into them.
We had to wait a while to do the gift exchange. It is hard to find a night where all the girls are home. We didn't have one until right before Christmas. I should mention that Ivory had Covid during this exchange. No one knew it. We tested her the next morning and she went into quarantine. I think she must have not been very contagious since no one caught it.
Another thing was that we needed to find a time when Grandma was available. She wanted to watch us do the exchange, but even better, I told her she could read the poem out loud on Zoom. Can you see her over there on the right?
The girls were all very excited. We drew numbers and then the game began.
This handsome devil was taking pictures for me. Thank you!
Here you can see some gift exchanging going on. We may not know what is inside, but we have guesses and we try to keep our favorites. Also, looks like there are no more gifts under the tree...
The game isn't always even. Sometimes one person has a lot and others have few. In this picture, I have a pile next to me and Pearl only has two.
Ivory got the stanza where you pass a present to the right and each person decides whether to pass it along or send another of theirs. She sent the one with the funny white ribbon. It was weighed and measured, but was found wanting. It came all the way back to her.
In the end, it evens out so everyone has the same amount. Pearl took a couple of mine until we each had four. Then everyone opened their gifts. And of course we exchanged when both parties agreed. Daisy was not going to share her giant kiss!
Robyn couldn't find anyone who wanted her mixed bugs. Surprise. I had smoked herring in a tin that Tyler took off my hands.
But most of the gifts were delicious. Everyone was very happy with their haul.
It was such a blast. I'm sure it cost Grandma a pretty penny to get all the edible items and send them, but the memories are sure priceless. We love you Grandma Dargan and thanks for this last fun experience we had as a family before Ivory was banished to the basement!
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