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You guys! I just got an Angebot I cannot possibly verpass! The email also said many other things in German, but the gist is that a kindly old woman wants to bequeath me six million euros. (That’s like Europe’s version of Canadian dollars.) And in return she wants … nothing at all.
I feel like I’m living in a medley of Charles Dickens novels. I started out as Pip, the poor soot-covered orphan who couldn’t even afford a real name. Now that I have a Generous Benefactress, I’m turning into Ebenezer Scrooge McDuck, a fabulously rich fellow whom everyone loves and totally not because of his money.
My Darling Fiancée assures me that this opportunity is a hoax. And if the message had come in some broken form of English, like it was written by a Nigerian kindergartener or a Canadian, I would believe her. But this is genuine! I know, because my Generous Benefactress must somehow have learned that I took German classes for two years in college. Which I did, and not only because it was not French. That is clearly part of the reason the GB chose me, of all the people in the world.
The Darling Fiancée thinks she has that all figured out, too. She claims that the German “spammer” found me because I once switched my Facebook language “auf Deutsch.”
Nuh uh! First of all, Facebook clearly and directly states that it will never allow outside parties to access users’ information. Also, she is just plain wrong. I once set my Facebook language to “Pirate,” and no one has yet to offer me six million gold doubloons.
Long story short, this Christmas is going to be epic. For me, anyway. I understand not everyone has my formidable resources. That’s why I’d like to relay some hard-earned wisdom from when I, too, was poor, about how to enjoy the holidays anyway.
Think through Christmases past. Can you recall precisely what presents you found under the tree? (Or under the menorah? Or under the cross? Or under the stuffed moose head wearing a Santa cap? I want to include all belief systems here; I’m just not sure how you all celebrate Christmas.)
Ha! I can’t even tell you what I ate for breakfast yesterday, so I would never expect you to recall something as meaningful as a heartfelt gift. Your loved ones will likewise forget your gifts to them. Take advantage of this fact: the holidays are that time of year when what’s inside doesn’t count nearly as much as what’s on the outside.
In other words, it’s not the gift that matters, but the packaging. Put on the glitz!
As proof, I offer a true success story. When I was a kid, I gave my little sister a gift certificate because Steve Jobs had not yet invented gift cards. This was basically a sheet of paper that said, “Your brother loves you enough to spend five dollars on a sheet of paper, instead of just stuffing a bunch of nickels in an old M&M wrapper. You can buy anything* you like! (*So long as this one specific store carries it.)”
Some of us might think that’s pretty touching, but I knew my sister. She was the worst at quietly hiding her disappointment with gifts. (She has improved; now, she is the worst at LOUDLY hiding her disappointment.) So to make the present stick, I laid it gingerly at the bottom of a big shipping box, and I filled the box with river rocks I took from somebody’s yard.
This present was as heavy as a box full of river rocks. It sparked a whole month of speculation and wonderment. No one could conceive of something so heavy that I, with no legal access to a bulldozer, could procure.
When my sister finally got to the gift certificate, she was so overcome with Christmas joy that she cheered my full name and threw a river rock at me, in that loveable “You shouldn’t have!” type of way.

Getting creative with your own ideas in this vein makes the holidays super affordable. For instance, if you live in Canada, you could forgive me for making fun of you twice in a single column. (Or maybe three times, if you are a Canadian with a moose head.) Wherever you live, the spirit of my rock-solid wisdom is that you should always strive to make the holiday season more memorable for everyone, while making it cheaper for you.
And kids: if you are very lucky, and you study your foreign languages like Uncle Zach did, maybe, just maybe, you’ll someday have your very own personal Mr. and/or Mrs. Petra Krombacher von Lemke. But you’ll have to wait until you’re old enough to have a bank account, because even the most magical benefactress needs those routing digits to wire you the funds.
– Zach Hively