"Blessed Christmas, Hold Out Your Hand"

Sometimes Christmas shopping reminds us of a church friend of ours. Back when we were kids in...most likely primary school or early secondary school, 'Cousin' Stan (well church 'relations' back then were rather convulated, there's the grandma-grandpa twist that just doesn't make sense) gave the most hilarious Christmas present to the bunch of us.

On Christmas Sunday, everyone went around exchanging gifts, from small Garfield decorative cups (still sitting in our drawer, we don't have the heart to throw them away even though there's absolutely no use for them whatsoever) to bookmarks to books or cassette tapes, after the morning church service. So there was this one year where 'Cousin' Stan went around to everyone with his hands behind his back and said:

"Blessed Christmas! Now, hold out your hand."

And so everyone would. We were watching as this happened to another church friend. So church friend would hold out his/her hand, and 'Cousin' Stan will proceed to pop a Mentos sweet unto the expecting palm.

"Blessed Christmas!"

Had us in laughter, the way he manage to give a fair number of people something rather than a selected few (bear in mind we were all not earning our own cash then, cannot simply get presents for everyone, and yes we got our Mentos too).And it's a tempting idea sometimes.