I was sitting discussing xmas presents with the wife, and the packages that had come so far. She casually announces "Oh, this came for you today as well"

Each day that same routine of wake-shower-work is punctuated with a small apostrophe of hope that perhaps something will arrive in the mail to give a little holiday cheer. And there it was! The one gift I had explicit, albeit anonymous permission to open the box. Long, rectangular, flat. Two plastic packing bands and a printed label under several strips of packing tape. It was strikingly heavy and my first guess was that Santa had gotten me a really big book! but the box had yet to be opened...

...and open it I did. The scissors gave no mercy to the plastic straps or the layers of tape at the seams - The flaps of the box opened and out is slid with ease... Santa had grand intuition with this one - it's a Michigan Maple cutting block 18" x 12" x 1 3/4" - and heavy too. A gift like this can help me climb the Ron Swanson Pyramid of Greatness, without a doubt! Super wife was roasting a chicken for dinner that night and my first instinct was to sharpen up the knife and carve up on the new wood! ...but no, I think a piece this fine should be given a little extra linseed oil treatment and a proper initiation to our kitchen at Christmas dinner as a carve and serve platter for a 4 bone prime rib.

A thousand thanks to you Santa, you always come through with something I would never have thought of for myself. I will post more photos of the block in action after the big dinner.