merry merry. happy happy.

Dollar Store Secret Santa has been going on since college and now the group is larger and each year stockings more and more ridiculous.



The rules are simple:

- When picking names you can't get yourself or your significant other
- Items in the stocking have to be under a dollar

This year, I got Matt D and he got me. And it's fair to say, he got me good.



In my stocking was:

• 6 crafty paper hats (one pictured)
• a grow-an-ostrich in a plastic egg
• a weird foot shaped foot scrubber
• 2 small plastic skulls
• a wooden exclamation point
• a monkey covering his eyes
• a ramones-esque skull sticker
• 2 koosh-ball looking animals
• 2 stick on mustaches
• HOME in sequins (Matt D read this as a creative spelling of "homey" apparently)
• a pair of pom pom keychains (one has since been given to Matt D as a symbol of our friendship)
• a tiny box of angry bunny stickers
• a dog that kind of looks like a lion
• a child size Miami Dolphins shot glass
• a matchbook of small candles
• a wooden letter K with markers to color it
• glittery monkey stickers
• a nail file (because Matt D enjoys torturing me with flashbacks to Black Swan)
• a modded Jake The Cowboy sticker book with Jake Gyllenhaal's face and added commentary
• AND... the complete 98° discography. Three in my stocking and the last two wrapped as a present and marked "OPEN THIS LAST". That last one took a lot of dedication and apparently a lot of scouring through the bargain bins at Record Archive. Now, whenever we carpool with MAMA's house—I'll bring the tunes.

And poor Bill had to wait through stockings and presentes before he was allowed to open the 3+ foot tall present Anna carried in for him.

By the time we were done with Christmas, it was barely over an hour until the New Year—which we rang in with Christmas Crackers, paper hats and champagne.

Kind of wished someone had asked me to talk about Jefferson at this point—for my own version of Drunken History.

Oh, and PS: Still finding confetti EVERYWHERE.