Pretty Parcels

Christmas is in full swing at our house. The tree is up, the porch is lit, and Jed is walking around with a furry red collar. Jolly cards are arriving by the handful, and parcels are gathering under the branches. But in truth, there have been pretty parcels floating around our house since the summer.

It all a started with a stack of bandages handed to me unceremoniously by a delivery man. ‘Delivery from Starkmans’ he’d said, thrusting the bag it into my hands. I threw it in the closet, annoyed by it’s very presence. I didn’t want to see anything medicinal. Nor did I want to see the pill bottles that I’d hidden in my underwear drawer. Or the thermometer.

Pretty Parcels, and Pills

If one isn’t careful after an operation, one’s house can start to look like a pharmacy, and reminders of illness scattered all over the place are depressing. So in an effort to make things pretty, I trotted off to the dollar store and stocked up on decorative bags and boxes. I took all my pills and put them in a merry blue and white striped box. Bandages went in a variety of lovely colourful bags, separated by size, and frequency of use. Scissors, tape, and other accessorizes went into polka dot bag which looked lovely, and inviting! (Percocet of course, got a special vessel of it’s own).

When nurse Alexi came to check my post-op incisions, he’d order me ‘Get bandage, bleeze’. I’d reach in the closet and grab a tasteful parcel, and it was as though I was handing him a gift. He never questioned my wrapping. Indeed, he probably wondered why I didn’t go a step further and get Hugo Boss carrying cases, since that’s more his style.

Now when I open my closet door, instead of a medicine cabinet, it looks like a tiny party! Since my dream room is Candy Spelling’s ‘Wrapping Paper Room’, this pleases me immensely. And I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t incorporate a piece of two of decorative ribbon. To complete my project, I took the mounds of canceritis literature that had been thrust upon me, and organized it into tasteful pastel folders. Candy Spelling would be proud.

Pretty Cute

I rarely go into those boxes anymore, though occasionally I’ll pop a recreational pill. Thankfully my summer anti-illness packages are being outnumbered by happy Christmas boxes, and my tiny wrapping paper closet is bursting with the festivities surrounding Jesus’s birth.

I can still wrap a mean gift, even though my brain is a bit foggy. And hopefully I can label the proper parcel, because nothing sends ‘Merry Christmas’ less than a band-aid, and a syringe.