I received this gift at the beginning of the week. I was very excited to see my gift in the flesh and boy, was it heavy too!

So I promptly put it under the tree with the intention of waiting a week before opening it on Xmas.

But the thought of a mystery gift ATE at me all week long. I'd find things to distract myself, thinking I should wait like everyone else in my family until Christmas morning and it would be MUCH more rewarding that way. But the more I tried to ignore my growing curiosity, the more compelling reasons I came up with to unwrap it. I came close to doing it on Thursday but I resisted. My will finally broke on Sunday after staring at the box under the tree for about 30 minutes; a post package looking so out of place among the other wrapped gifts. So before my mind changed again, I tore the thing open...

First to greet me was a Mechanical Kangaroo (or MechRoo as it shall forever be known henceforth). It is very awesome and I laughed heartily at that. I can't wait to put it together, but right now it's been rewrapped and placed under the tree.

The next package was completely unexpected. It was so heavy that I feared lead weights. But after unwrapping it carefully, I was greeted with a piece of Yesteryear Lore - a product of the 60s growing optimism, the Smith-Corona Mail Call. Essentially, a portable recording device which allowed for up to 6 minutes of talktime that could be recorded onto a tape and send on the regular mail to its recipient who would then play it back on their Mailcall. It's in pristine condition, which tells me whoever originally paid the $160 odd dollars back then took very good care of it.

When piratecat revealed himself to be mu SecretSanta, I went back to his reddit history and at once, it all made sense and was very clear to me. This is the device which contained the recording of a young family sharing the joyous news of a baby arrival to a very happy and proud grandmother. It was very touching to hear the voices and it gave me a glimpse to a family back in time whose joy could be heard, even after all these years (piratecat was kind enough to translate the tape recording into an mp3 file which was sent on a 2Gb memory stick, along with a note explaining this to me).

I am very happy with my gift and I thankyou piratecat - a thankyou letter is on its way to you :)