Drawing on Words

My husband (a Hobbit enthusiast) shares his birthday with or around Thanksgiving each year.  This year I had a surprise in mind.

November is also our anniversary, so we decided to take the family for a weekend at the coast.  (Will post that next week.)  Since the coastal fun takes place two full weeks before his birthday, I schemed with the family to hold a surprise birthday there.

He was shocked when gifts, candles, songs, merriment appeared from out of nowhere. There were gifts and cards galore, with all of us beaming that we had kept the secret.

The last gift was a box inspired by his own words.

The box held a scroll with the message,

Dearest Hobbit,

From the earliest birthdays we’ve shared, few have gone by without you wishing you could celebrate a proper Hobbit birthday where the birthday hosts gives gifts to others to celebrate a spirit of gratitude. These small tokens are given with much love. So, dear one, I have made it so. In this box you will find gifts to hand out, as a proper Hobbit would. I do this with deep love.

Your Elven Queen

.

He removed the gifts and handed them out to a much surprised family.

* FYI, if you wish to make paper look old, it is quite acceptable to tear the edges and color them in ink.  Getting the aged look through burning might cause some…er….ah….situations that are harder to explain (ruined an iced soda and had to air out the house before he got home — yikes).