Last year a group of the Shibas with Twitter (Twibas, if you will) personas got together and did a gift exchange. Misaki was a little sad we didn't sign her up for it, so when it came time for the 2011 Secret Shiba Gift Exchange, she made sure we put her name in.
Secret Shiba is an honest to goodness real thing, with it's own tumblr site and everything. It's organized by the human mother of Phineas the Shiba, who is famous in his own right after winning awards for a short film this past summer (see it here!).
There were guidelines and I believe something like 60 Shibas signed up for the 2011 version. The pups were from not only all over the United States, but also Australia, Canada, and even Luxembourg! Misaki was assigned Baron (shibamindtrick on Twitter) and she gave us very specific shopping instructions. We were to get things she liked and approved of, so into the package went some Zuke's Z-Bones, a Himalayan chew, and a stuffed goose that honks when the pup chomps it. Plus she advised us to get a little something for Baron's parents, so we found some chocolates from Xocolatl de David.
She also made sure when it came time to wrap the gifts that she approved of the paper.
And she even gave the card a kiss of approval (if you click on the pic below to make it bigger, you can see the nose prints).
My genius self pre-paid for the flat rate box at the post office, so instead of putting a sticker on it with the shipping price, they sold me a pile of stamps. That in itself took five minutes to stick all those things on.
We made sure to get it in the mail with plenty of time before Christmas and a few days later got confirmation on Twitter it had arrived.
Then, a couple days later, a box arrived for Misaki!
She wanted to open it. And, actually, so did the cats. This is Misaki being annoyed...she takes out her agression on a chew toy.
Fine, she said, can you at least put it under the tree for me? Um...sorry Misaki, but we haven't put up a tree in a couple years. This is the best we could do.
She was not amused, and she became convinced Wifey's OSU Beaver reindeer was part of her gift. Every day she wanted to open that box. She'd lay in the living room and give us the saddest, most forlorn puppy dog eyes ever.
When Christmas morning came she was excited, but when she realized Wifey and I were just going to sleep in and take our time making coffee and breakfast, she got sad again. (This cartoon from The Oatmeal about how different age groups celebrate Christmas is so true. We so fall into the category of 30-somethings without kids.)
Finally I opened the box up for her.
Her box came from Nami, who can be found on Twitter here and also on tumblr. Misaki wanted to have everything at once.
That pink Princess Nylabone really got her attention. She has been known to destroy one of these in a month, but apparently Nylabone changed the formula on them. Up until now all of them had been mint flavored, but now they also have a bacon flavor. She was ready to chew this right out of the cardboard packaging.
She also received a sock monkey toy that squeaks, which she has been carrying all over the house.
And there was this neat little container of bacon and mint treats. She loves them!
All in all the Secret Shiba Exchange seemed to go very well. The toy was a hit.
The treats were met with approval.
And probably unknowingly, Nami also sent the kitties toys as well. They love tissue paper like crazy.
Lots of good times. Thank you to Nami and her pack for the gifts, a Merry Christmas to Baron and his pack, and a hearty thank you to Phin and his pack for organizing the whole thing.
And none of this would have been possible without Twitter. Technology really is amazing, isn't it?
What awesome presents!! Nice tree too - you give "putting presents under the tree" a whole new meaning.
ReplyDeleteShe was not impressed at all with what we called a tree. :)
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