Back in June I decided to splurge and take part in That Artsy Reader Girl‘s #GiftmasinJuly swap. I assembled my box and shipped it two states over, where it arrived just at the end of July. My recipient was kind, specifically calling out some of the fun, random things I’d picked for her, as well as books from her wish list.

This week, it was my turn to be showered with gifts. Look what a great job Jana did with the wrapping! That framing does not happen by accident, and I pointed that fact out to Corey.

Things with my original Santa hadn’t worked out and while I’d been disappointed, I understood that can happen once in a while. The swap’s host, Jana, however, was unwilling to accept that someone hadn’t gotten a box. She reached out to her legions of followers, and she and ten of her elves pitched in to send Corey and me fantastic gifts.

I’d had a long day, and was happy to space out the opening of my gifts, but Corey was having none of that. He hopped right up on the chair and immediately plucked a gift for himself and ran off with it!

I retrieved the package, but decided we could open that one next. A ha! A peek under the wrapping showed me that he hadn’t picked that gift at random!

A whole family of mice toys to play with! Corey thought it was great that he could take them all with him to lie on top of in case I thought I should get to play with them! (I finally cut one loose for him this afternoon for ease of tossing around, but left the other three together for now.)

After that, he was perfectly content to leave the rest of the packages to me. And I drew out the unwrapping in between chores and a nap and supper and going to bed, because a long, crummy day deserves to be followed by an equally long period of delight.

And look how delightful that is, nearly 12 hours later! Four books, including one I’ll save for December and three that I’m going to have a hard time picking amongst for which one I read first. They’re all exactly the sort of books I’ve been enjoying since the world shut down. There were two new nail polishes (I had to talk myself out of painting my nails while on an all-staff call today, but I will probably reward myself for getting through whatever flooding comes my way tomorrow). There were two new pairs of socks — one with Jane Austen and one with doughnuts! There were new pens in cheerful colors and chocolate to make the next long day easier! And then Jana also included local goodies — Stephen’s cocoa mix and Lehi Mills brownie mix. (Jana, Rudi is at his mom’s house in Salt Lake as I type this, and he immediately brought up Footloose when I read him your note.)

I don’t know that I could have asked for a nicer care package for #GiftmasinJuly. Thank you Jana! And thank you to @Mrs_Ally_Kent, @shek1029, @elleyotter, @hermitlibrarian, @xbackstagetweet, @DaisyKatieReads, Anne Phelps (who I know IRL, but who didn’t know it was me she was pitching in to help), @bookishallison, @literaryetc, and @pageoflovealexa! Your kindness went above and beyond, and really helped to turn around a bad day and to set a better tone for many days to come!