Happy new year, all!
Replicating a recent thread from CBn. Thought I'd relay a nice anecdote from the holidays. My sister put together what I have to consider one of the coolest Christmas gifts of all time. Well, maybe not to the average person. But to those who frequent a Bond message board, it's got to be up there.
The end result may seem underwhelming given the hype I'm assigning it, but the effort put in and the story that goes alongside were just too cool - from this 007 fan's perspective - not to share.
Relevant background: We live in Canada, she's a personal trainer, and I'm about as hardcore a 007 geek as they come. By proxy, her knowledge of the franchise is more than the average person's. (QUOTE: "I knew who Eve was as soon I saw that coat rack.") We watched Skyfall together on opening day, and she's in agreement that it's one of the franchise's best films.
Essentially, I'd been hearing for months from the entire family - "You won't believe what your sister got you for Christmas." It's been sort of a running joke since September. She's something of a believer in unique, creative gifts - IE, making cool things rather than just buying them.
(Case in point: she jokingly posted this image on my Facebook wall in late November with the caption, "SPOILER ALERT: Skyfall made of gingerbread.")
All I knew about this Christmas gift was that it was Skyfall-related. (I asked if it was the above. Reply: "No. But now that I think of it, giving you stale, broken gingerbread would have been pretty funny, too.") Any attempts to glean info from a family member 'in the know' were met with incredulous laughter.
Christmas morning arrives. She puts a very FRWL-style black attache case in front of me that's wrapped in bloody newspaper.
We're off to a good start.
I'm told to open the card first. It's one of those ones where you can record a custom audio greeting. She's decorated the thing to look like an MI6 file folder. I'm promptly greeted with an audio briefing from 'M' - coincidentally her first initial. It's read by a British voice - she's actually had one of her British ex-pat gym clients record this message for her - telling me in impressively written intelligence jargon that the package was received by the department last night, it's cleared security, and I need to crack it. "You'll know the code."
Three number sequence. Coy glance ensues, and I try "007". Surprise, the case opens.
Inside is collection of random Bond-related paraphernalia. Including:
- Poker chips.
- Playing cards organized in the exact straight flush Bond won with in Casino Royale, and the Ace-Queen Le Chiffre knocked out Leiter with just before that.
- Ice cube trays for making handgun-shaped cubes.
- Whiskey.
- A little toy excavator, not unlike the one Bond drives in Skyfall's signature action sequence on the train.
At this point, I'm just laughing at the hilariousness of it. I'm so impressed by the presentation. I say thank you, what an amazing gift. I get a sort of, "keep looking, there's more," look.
I start fishing around in the briefcase's pockets and find what seems to be a Skyfall-branded cardboard sleeve. One that belongs around something else. Takes my eyes a few seconds to digest it, before I realize where it came from...
...and she hands me another box, containing Royal Doulton's replica British bulldog - "Jack" - from Skyfall. The one that's apparently back-ordered until May (low and behold, one of her clients works for one of the Canadian equivalents of The Shopping Channel and seemingly pulled a string).
Just an amazing project and a phenomenal gift. The ultimate, "Wow, she really knows her brother," sort of thing.
I haven't a hope in hell of ever repaying the effort. Accepting suggestions.
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