Christmas Presents

[Rhiannon]

This years presents: quite a lot (that's what you get when visiting two families ;D)
My boyfriend and I spent the first half of Christmas Week at my parents house, so he got to see all of the strange traditions that have evolved under our tree (he had been warned)... As the biggest part of my brother's and my christmas gift from our parents takes part on our bank account, we get only small stuff. But to keep us busy the whole evening, they are always wrapped in a complicated riddle we have to solve in advance (oh, yeah, although he denies it this is what my dad looks forward to every year: seing us sweat the whole night...) This year there were three large parcels with unfortunaltely unreadable labels, apparently messed up by the Galactic Delivery Service.... To get the right present, we had to solve a crossword puzzle, derrive a code from it and translate the labels...

THe second part was spent with his parents where we got a second round of presents ;D

Overall it included a lot of really nice books like Can Reindeer fly?: a "scientific" approach to Christmas ;D, a book on Aikido (one strange stuff I do in my spare time), a lot of my favourite wine , and enough sweets to last a while...And, yeah, my bank account is once again feeling fine again...

[Imrel]

Hehe, I like the sound of your family's present opening system. It would probably be a good idea for mine, to get my brothers to slow down a bit. Though saying that, they'd no doubt just rip open all the presents and sort out whose was what later.

Can Reindeer Fly, huh? I'm intruiged.

[Elidor]

~Éowyn~ said:

Met any gypsies in Europe?

Yes. Two, to be precise. They tried to rob a person in my tour group but failed when a nice german guy stopped them and called out to my group if we had lost anything. Their technique was bumping into people and burying their hands into pockets to get some quick cash.

Another incident was at Italy. The gypsies there were much more skilled and got away with about 200 euros from an unlucky couple in my group.

I was told that they mostly preyed on Chinese tourist as they think that all chinese are from China, whom carry a lot of cash in their pocket.

[Balin]

I got loads of shirts and books.
Gandalf action figure
some training stuff
TTT tickets
empty CDs
about 6000 :- witch is about $600
some fotball pads
socks
alarm clock
and some stuff I don't remember.

[~Dernhelm~]

Eli, they aren't very nice. There's a lucky fountain in Croatia where people drop a few coins in and make a wish. Guess what the gypsies do? They jump right into the fountain and swim to get the money. Luckily the police too some action over it...

Rhia, that sounds like fun! I just try to make the moment last by opening everything slowly, pondering over what could be inside. It's because the moment I finish, it all seems too short!

Cool stuff, Balin!