One of the workers carries a medium-sized, ubiquitous brown box into my room. She helps me dig through the layers of packing to reveal a square silver tin from something called Felix and Norton. Moments later I discover a treasure trove of several different kinds of cookies, hiding in the tin. The company is obviously a bakery that makes, as it turns out, wickedly delicious cookies. No card and no one to blame for this diet-destroying surprise. Secret Santa meets the Cookie Monster.
I have my suspicions and over the next couple of days I email several friends. Everyone wishes they could take the credit but no one steps up and confesses. On the third day, I finally get smart (Duh) and Google the bakery. It’s in Markham, Ontario and their website says they can no longer ship across Canada because of Covid. That narrows the field considerably. I accuse one of my best friends from high school. Guilty as charged.
Turns out the bakery forgot to include the card. No worries, the hunt to find the giver was a lot of fun. And, how lucky am I to have so many good friends to suspect?
A day later another brown box arrives, this one a little larger. Again no card. Someone has sent a lovely arrangement of evergreens and cedar stems along with a couple pinecones, white flowers and red carnations and even red roses. Beautiful to look at, yes, but it’s best feature? It smells like Christmas.
I have a confession. I’m a smelly person. I don’t stink, or at least I don’t think so. What I mean is, I’m into smells. Fresh bread baking, onions frying, laundry hung on a clothesline to dry. But, not just the classic ones that everyone likes, some personal ones also. The smell of new clothing, fresh from the store. Books, old and newly inked, and magazines too. The smell inside my dining room cupboard, chock-full of my good china, silverware and table linens, but somehow still retaining whiffs of a cranberry-scented candle from a dinner party years ago.
But I digress. I return to the box and inspect it carefully, turning it over in my hands. I finally spot a small address in the corner. It’s from one of my sisters-in-law, who knows me well. I set it near my window. Later, when the temperature outside climbs to a ridiculous 13°C, I open the window and allow the breeze to mingle with my Christmas-scented room.