story about books: gifts from iulia!!!

merry christmas everybody, i´m at my parents´now (with posts about what happened here these days hopefully following soon. )  but since i´m already packing to return, this is a post from back in cluj, when we opened gifts last week under (or near) giulia´s tree.

the package that arrived is from our friend iulia in england, and it´s the first of its kind that i´ve been witness to. apparently the size and contents of it surprised no one else, though it made all of us happy.

apparently iulia offered books, or giulia asked for books, motivating by the fact that i´ve been plundering her shelves of fiction since summer (because all my books are still packed in boxes and anyway i´ve already read those, so what is the point!). so iulia asked what books i wanted. (bad idea? haha , probably.) so i wrote her a list of suggestions. (you probably REALLY do not want to know.)

as far as i gather, iulia gets these books mostly at library sales, hence the number and variety of them. we welcomed them gladly. here:

the opening ceremony. for which, i must add, dana and i HAD TO be present, although the pack had arrived earlier. i had a better picture of it all unopened and stamped, but with both iulia and giulia´s addresses very visible on it, so....yeah no.

giulia is very handy with a cutter. lucky me for travelling with her soon, ha-ha.

i am very handy with sitting around drinking orange-cinnamon tea. this was meant to be a picture of our twin (triplet?) christmas cards, but hey woops

so you only get to see mine. the others look exactly the same though

and one of the toys, more magical than the others apparently.

the gathering of chocolate bars, toys, books and pumpkin with cinnamon on top. because at giulia´s everything has cinnamon on top.

then coco met his smashing mate outside of the confines of the box...and there was much rejoicing. as usual.

this is my final stash: things i asked for(tove janson, etgar keret, michael chabon), things i care for so i can´t let go (older zadie smith´s, camus in french) and hopeful novelties.
(also, things giulia SHOULD like because if not i´m taking them: alice munro, agota kristof. )

dana approves of the mint bubbly chocolate, and we do too. i also approve of my body butter. etc.

an array of different other presents that giulia got from different other awesome people...and the CDs and mint madness -those were in the package.

dana´s newly found favourite place to sit while at giulia´s. makes perfect sense. aaand, 1000 pieces puzzles...just waiting for us to meet again post-christmas.

i think this is all. additional info:
- it was minus 8 degrees that night. i was wearing a chiffon pleated skirt (bit of it visible in pic)
- i got the nicest possible crab earrings (not pictured. but they have eyes!!and claws. and tiny legs.)
so happy with my presents! thank you present-makers and christmas atmoshpere-makers!
i am currently about to finish reading the second book in my present stash. hoping to find and buy more books on the new year´s trip, and that the coming year will be rich in reading!
c.