The perfect gift

This week has clearly started out as a bad one. I’m more than a little embarrassed about how much I’ve let the clouds take over the last few days, so I want to try and focus on some positivity. In amongst my now well-documented meltdown, I recently turned thirty. That’s right - dirty, flirty, fabulous thirty. Anyone that knows me well, will know that my favourite type of present to receive is either wrapped up in sentiment, or involves quality time with the gift-giver. The extra special gifts involve both of those things, and there is no one better at achieving this than my older sister Emsie. Is older less offensive than saying big? For my thirtieth, my sister gave me what I think is one of my most favourite gifts of all time. Elder, it should be elder sister. I’m not sure I will do the gift justice by trying to describe it, but I’ll give it a go.

The present I opened on my actual birthday was a memory box frame and, alongside it, thirty small numbered envelopes – one to open each day. The envelopes contained heartfelt messages, funny memories, small gifts, photographs, just lots of different ways to make me smile, and the idea was to fill up the frame with the lovely memories, whilst also getting to open a whole month of presents.

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Weirdly, one my favourite envelopes included a story about me wetting myself in public, and reading it made me laugh so much I was glad to be in the comfort of my own home! Another was a photograph of Ems and I skipping along in a drunken haze at Christmas, whilst our other halves walked along next to us pretending we weren’t there...

Some days had ‘artwork’ from Emilia and Cooper, or a note from my sister-in-law reminding me that we need to dance on tables together soon, and another had a little note from my brother-in-law who has a much better way with words than you might ever imagine. He will also want some credit for this gift, so well done Mac, I’m sure you carefully supervised the whole thing!

Perhaps the most special part of this whole idea was that Emilia absolutely loved opening the envelopes with me. Every morning for a month she would come into our bedroom, take the next envelope out of the box, bring it over to me and we would sit and open it together. Then she would pretend to read the note to me, or if there was a photograph she’d try to name the people pictured. I’m not sure that Ems even realised this at the time when she was putting this all together, but she gave me a little piece of perfect quality bonding time with Emilia every single day.

I loved this gift so much that Dan started to get jealous and told me Ems was ‘winding him up’ with her ability to make me smile every day! Don’t worry Daniel, the diamonds make me smile everyday too…

I also now feel incredibly guilty that on my sister’s thirtieth I didn’t think of something equally amazing to do for her. In fairness, the circumstances were a little different back then; I was one day away from my due date, Ems was two days away from hers, we were both seriously fat, it was unbearably hot, we couldn’t drink wine, and were both just a little bit angry. Even when I tried to hug her to say happy birthday we couldn’t reach each other over our bumps, and I think I might have kicked her with my huge swollen Shrek feet. It doesn’t sound like a pretty picture, and trust me when I say it wasn’t.

I have so much more to say about my beautiful sister, but for now I don’t want to take away from just saying a massive thank you for how gorgeous this gift was, so I’ll save that for another time.

S x