This Christmas elf is getting a bit nervous. Usually I am far ahead of where I am now so my to-do lists through this weekend are long. Today’s list is loaded with six stops as varied as a book store and the dump. But if all goes well, next week will be relaxed. I’ll sit, watch Christmas movies, sip egg nog, loaded egg nog my favorite, and admire my house. I’ll do some baking and some candy making and the last of the wrapping, gifts for friends I won’t see until after Christmas. I’m looking forward to that egg nog most of all.

My sister Moe has a most unusual Christmas talent. She started practicing it when she was young. Moe used to make the smallest hole in every present under the tree so she could see what the present was. The holes were so well placed you really had to hunt to find them. Moe didn’t discriminate. She did it to every present, hers or not. As Moe got older, she honed her talent. She just had to hold the gift, give it a squeeze or two and she knew exactly what it was. Boxes were no deterrent. She moved them back and forth and up and down and then announced what was inside the box. We tried to trick her by putting small things in huge boxes, by wrapping the gifts inside the boxes in cloth and by putting box in box, but Moe beat us every time. One Christmas Eve she was going to a party and told Rod, her husband, she needed new earrings to go with her dress. Moe went right to the boxes under her tree, shook a couple and chose one. In it was a pair of new earrings. They had been hidden, box in box, but not from Moe. I am in awe of her talent.

Every year we could always count on a few traditional stocking stuffers. We always got a bag of Chanukah gelt. My mother bought it by mistake one year, and after that we expected it, and she obliged. I always buy some now for my two sisters. This year, Nancy, at the candy store pointed out I was buying gelt, and I told her that was exactly what I wanted. My sister Moe gets her Life Saver book. Sheila gets her Star Trek calendar, original crew.

My Dad loved thin ribbon candy. That first Christmas without him none of us were too much in the spirit, but after Moe opened her ribbon candy, she called to say it had brought back Christmas and, best of all, had brought back my Dad. Ribbon candy is always first gift I buy.