The Christmas Puzzle

One of my favorite Christmas traditions happens to be a tradition that Robyn despises.  You see, ever since I was a small child I have thoroughly enjoyed the process of feeling each gift, shaking it, listening to it, and deriving every bit of information that can be gathered without actually opening the gift.

To a seasoned present questioner, it's amazing how much information can be gathered without seeing the present.  A simple shaking can reveal the weight and the dimensions.  A little feeling can reveal shape and texture.  Once the basics have been found it's just a matter of querying the database in your brain.  You don't have to cross reference the information against everything in the world, you only have to cross reference it against things you want.  The important thing is that your brain should have stored all the information about everything that you want in a database table.  Then your brain just has to run a simple SQL query.  Something along the lines of "SELECT title FROM desired_items where width='x' AND weight='y'".  (If you don't understand the SQL query, don't worry, I just put that in for the benefit of the nerds.)

Robyn doesn't like this game.  She doesn't appreciate when I solve the puzzle.  She didn't like watching me pick up each present and then tell her what they were.  She doesn't understand the complex algorithms that are going on inside my head as I figure out height, weight and so on.

I have to say, despite her not liking this particular game, I was impressed with her skill.  Knowing of my excellent present shaking skills she did some work to hide the true information about some of my gifts.  One gift in particular, she put a small ziploc bag filled with Cap'n Crunch inside the box.  Thus when it was shaken, all that could be heard was the cereal.  Of course, I knew right away I was hearing cereal, but I was unable to pick out the proper sounds.

My mom, who has witnessed my skills for longer than Robyn has, especially enjoys the thrill of challenging me.  She had one particular gift that she handed me and dared me to figure it out.  I have to admit, she defeated me.  How could I possibly know that there could be this level of coolness?  Here is me with my cute new pet Cthulhu.

(If you don't know who Cthulhu is, he's an evil demon thought up by H.P. Lovecraft who telepathically enslaves people or drives them mad.  He's also very cute, as seen above.)

Of course, my mother didn't stop there.  She also challenged me with another gift.  She wrote a note on the outside saying, "This will help make it easier to have children."  Again, I couldn't guess this one.  She gave me this awesome binky that makes a baby look like a vampire.

She has me there.  Who wouldn't want to make their precious baby look like a vampire?  What she failed to take into account was that I make a pretty precious vampire myself.  I bet she didn't see that coming.

Isn't Christmas great?  Of course, there are many reasons to enjoy Christmas besides presents (and solving the great mystery of presents.)  I enjoyed spending the day with family and loved ones.  I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!