I stuck googly eyes on my Christmas gifts this year.
This story started back in the summer with a pair of grey oven mitts. They are shorter than usual. They go only as far as the wrist and don’t cover the forearm at all. When they’re on the hand they look like puppets. Last summer I was in the dollar store when I got a bolt of inspiration: let’s put googly eyes on the oven mitts and turn them into sharks. I happen to know some biologists and they glued the eyes on for me in the anatomically correct position. Hilarious! Not knowing what to do with the leftover eyes, I tossed the package into my gift-wrapping supplies.
Fast forward to December. Lucie and I are about to wrap my Christmas gifts when we discover the googly eyes. (Lucie is my shopping Sherpa and general partner in crime. When I say “we” I usually mean I’m the mastermind and poor Lucie has to do my bidding.) I say, “We should make faces on the gifts!” The to-and-from labels become the noses. The eyes go where they normally do (duh). What next? I notice a package of miniature bows and ribbons. I have three gifts to wrap. For my son, we place two matching white bows above each googly eye so they look like fuzzy eyebrows. For my daughter-in-law we use four royal blue bows in a row above her eyes to make bangs. Three silver bows left. My husband gets a goatee where his chin should be.
The faces are somehow sweet and goofy. I issue a silent prayer of thanks to the universe for giving me the exact number of bows I needed. I love silliness and I love it when things work out as though they were meant to be.
