Christmas wrapping

At my nephew Awi's first Christmas, he seemed to get more enjoyment from the wrapping than from the gifts themselves. Not much has changed: His parents had to wait until the last possible moment to put the presents under the tree to prevent him from tearing into them all. Even with close supervision, he managed to make off with all the stick-on bows, plastering them across his chest and on his butt and gallivanting like a little prince. Christmas morning was a matter of getting a half-unwrapped gift with the bows and tags missing and asking around until you found out who gave it to you.

It may be he'll outgrow this, but if it's a genetic trait, signs aren't good. I opened the first two of my four prezzies from monshu this morning (my one gift for him is looking a little forlorn, even if it is bigger than all the others combined): A cute turtle carved from semi-precious stone and a purple earthenware vase inscribed with the heart sutra. The latter came encircled in a piece of foam bearing the legend "Parador", a strip of Chinese text beneath it, and the most curious mascot: a grimacing Caucasian kid with thick glasses (think Ralphie from A Christmas story crossing his eyes).

Of the six Chinese characters, I immediately recognised the first two as "Germany". The next four I thought might be a transliteration of a German city name, but nothing came to mind, so I reached for the dictionary. The last two meant "flooring" and a web search confirms that Parador is, in fact, a German-based wood products supplier that exports to China. That leaves only the two middle characters, 隆迪, which could be a transliteration, could be the name of a Chinese company. (Don't all foreign corporations have to partner with Chinese ones if they want to do business there?) All I can find from a web search are that these are popular characters to use when spelling the name of Cameron Diaz (shades of Rampo!) in Chinese.

I got a rock!

Being as tonight is Holy Innocents, monshu and I had our gift exchange. He laughed when he saw the lotus-shaped lamp from Eastern Deco because he almost bought one for me! I'm relieved he didn't, since they are not cheap and it would've made my gift less special. He's already given me three lamps for my place: A small electric Japanese lantern with a paper shade, a traditional Chinese lantern with a red cloth shade and chrysanthemum patterns, and modern torchiere with a bendy armature. His third and fourth gifts to me were a hand-carved wooden stand and a bone-white Taihu rock to set in it. My complement of scholar's studio paraphenalia is nearly complete!

As if all that weren't enough, he says there's another gift on the way! Plus, for dinner tonight, he roasted ham with vermouth and madeira and served it with garlic mashed potatoes, white beans with sage, and brussel sprouts in vinaigrette and he picked up a mess of German goodies half price at the closing day of the Christkindlmarkt, so we now have Lebkuchen, Spekulatius, and marzipan to last me into the New Year. What have I ever done to deserve such a bonanza? Hopefully, all the good karma he's amassed from such generosity will go into healing his cold so he can actually enjoy his time off.