Christmas Party in Santa Cruz with Laurel
Last Saturday night, Yardu and her roommates in Santa Cruz threw another great Christmas White Elephant party. Hanging out with her roommates and all of the ultra-hip, post-college age Mountain Hermon camp leader and “emerging church” folks, it reminds me a bit of the group at that Laurel and I were a part of for a number of years. Fortunately, Ivy and I seem to fit right in.
Some funny moments for us: Ivy “stealing” (as per the White Elephant rules) the cow-themed alarm clock gift that has an authentic mooing cow noise because she wanted this to wake us up every morning. Perhaps Ivy and I both have rural, farm-based roots that we want to get back to. (I grew up with some chickens, goats and horses and Ivy loves animals, plants, trees, berries, gardening, etc. By the way, where we currently live there are about 10 squirrels outside our apartment in a little grove with two oak trees. This squirrel colony is bustling. In Hungarian, a squirrel is called a “mokus” (pronounced “moe-koosh”) and we spend time every day watching these guys jump around and nervously and quickly eat their nuts. They are hilarious.)
Back to the White Elephant party and to the other funny moment for us: We wrapped up two old thick “Labor Law” casebooks as my gift and it turns out that the only young kid at the party picked this gift. He was probably 9 years old and was crestfallen when he pulled open the wrapping paper and saw these two boring books staring back at him. This nevertheless got a lot of restrained laughs from everyone and the kid was actually a pretty good sport about it. Ivy and I later gave him the “Poopy Reindeer” gift (a plastic reindeer action-figure that drops realistic-looking pellets) that came with her Moo-Cow alarm and this got him very excited and happy.