“When I think of my mom’s family, I think of the Christmas party they held on the third Sunday of every December, and, more specifically, of the white elephant gift exchange that became, over the years, the party’s most important feature. Participants in the exchange included my cousins, my aunts and uncles, and my grandpa. Also my grandma, until a massive stroke left her unable to speak or easily move on her own. Even after that, though, she maintained a presence at the gift exchange, silently presiding over the festivities from the comfort of her green leather recliner.

It was the most important family event of the year, and this is how it worked:

Each participant brought one wrapped gift, which was assigned a number by my Aunt Carol (my mom is one of seven children), famed throughout the family for her scrupulous organizational skills. (We later learned that these skills allowed her to successfully embezzle much of my grandparents’ income during their retirement years. At the time, she told us she was just helping them with their taxes, and the whole thing would have stayed a secret forever if she hadn’t kept meticulous records of her years of theft in a bankers box under her bed which her children found after she died. In the end, I guess her attention to detail cut both ways). ”

T.I.M. Wirkus’s story, “The Scarf,” was originally published at Emerald City, and you can read it HERE.

T.I.M. Wirkus (they/them) is the author of the novels The Infinite Future and City of Brick and Shadow. Their novella, Sandy Downs, won the 2013 Quarterly West novella contest. Their short fiction has appeared in The Best American Non-Required Reading and elsewhere. They hold a PhD in creative writing and literature from the University of Southern California.