Love, As Always, Pete

The Weekly Letters, by A. Pedersen Wood

January 11, 2006

Dear Everyone:

Thirty-something years ago, “Jeannie” and I were Christmas shopping in San Francisco.  We wandered into a tourist shop where we found an item.  It was a ceramic object, about five inches high, four inches wide and two inches deep.  It depicted the Transamerica Pyramid Building, one of the more recognizable landmarks in San Francisco, with a cable car climbing a hill in front of it.

Geographically, it was less than accurate.  None of the cable lines goes anywhere near the Transamerica building.  In addition, the cable car was almost the same size as the building.  Along the bottom of a simulated cobblestone pavement were the words, “San Francisco”.  But what really caught our attention was the fact that someone had, somewhat inexpertly, glued a small thermometer to the side of the Transamerica Pyramid.

It was this attempt to merge the functional with the frivolous that caused us to agree that it was quite the tackiest thing either of us had seen in many years.  Naturally we bought one immediately.  Later, we wrapped it for Christmas and placed it under the tree with a tag reading, “To Mother, from ‘Richard’ and ‘Marshall’.”

On Christmas morning, when Mother opened this gift, “Richard” and “Marshall” were suitably horrified and denied any knowledge of it whatsoever.  Mother promptly decreed that it would become a Circulating Stocking Stuffer.  A Circulating Stocking Stuffer is a small gift, such as would fit into a Christmas stocking, which is passed from one person to another each year.  Rather like a fruitcake, but without the crumbs.

The following year, Mother gave the Circulating Stocking Stuffer to someone else.  That person (who remembers who?) kept it for a year, then passed it on to the next person.  The object of the game was to try and catch the next recipient unawares.  And you couldn’t give it back to the person who gave it to you.  And it had to stay within the family.

I believe I had the Circulating Stocking Stuffer in 2001.  I had planned to use a friend’s husband, who traveled all over the country, to mail it to the next lucky individual from an unknown location.  That was before the events of September 11th.  After that, mail from strangers was viewed with great suspicion.  So I found another way to surprise someone.

Over the past three decades, we have shuffled this small gesture of affection around, never breaking it, never losing it, always finding a way to hand it off to another who would be responsible for it for the next year.

This last Christmas, I got “Jeannie’s” name.  I gave her an iPod, which we have yet to get installed and configured.  We had planned to do it last weekend, but got sidetracked by the need to add her company’s logo and address to a layout on her work computer.  So we’ll probably get the iPod going this next weekend.

Coincidentally, “Marshall” got Mother’s name and she got “Marshall’s”.  This made it especially easy for “Marshall”.  He shipped Mother a case of wine from the winery in which he owns stock.  And the day before Christmas, we drove into Lake Oswego to the Pendleton store.  “Marshall” pointed out the Lake Oswego stadium blanket for Mother to purchase for him.

“Marshall” also had some beautifully inlaid gift boxes.  He gave a medium-size gift box to “Jeannie”.  It contained about a half-dozen folding umbrellas.  (Remember back in September when “Jeannie” kept buying, then misplacing, “cheap” umbrellas during the rainstorm?)

“Marshall” also gave me a smaller gift box.  Inside it was another box.  Inside that was…

…the Circulating Stocking Stuffer.

So I am the official custodian of the CSS for 2006.  I’m already planning how to spring it on my unsuspecting victim.

“Hurry, Christmas, don’t be late…”

Love, as always,

 

Pete

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