Christmas Presents

 

These are two presents I got Kevin for Christmas. He and I have been opening gifts to each other all month long. It’s just my daughter that wants to wait. He and I don’t care. It also helps ease the pain of being so overworked right now with year end inventories. 

These are in the TikTok shop and are food boxes from many different cultures. I got him the Japanese ones, although “Teoki Bokki” is apparently Korean. I can’t wait to try this. It’s apparently rice cakes with cheese sauce. Honestly, whenever I’ve eaten rice cakes, I’ve always thought to myself “This needs cheese sauce.”  

Ever since I ordered these, I’ve gotten ads for food boxes from all kinds of places all over the world. I was at my mother’s house yesterday telling her about them. When I tried to give her examples of the countries I’ve seen food and snack boxes advertised from, I said “Morocco, Australia-“ 

She replied, “Zambibi”. 

I sort of paused. My mom’s first language is English, but her mother immigrated here to the USA when she was still a teenager, about 19 years old. I don’t think she ever had English lessons as a child- it was all instant immersion for my grandmother- and my grandmother did this All. The. Time. Where she’d combine more than one language into one word. When my mom said “Zambibi”, she was thinking not only of the country in Africa called Zambia, but also of how middle eastern people call their significant others “Habibi”. I sort of laughed, unsure if my mom was joking, trying to be like her mother or what. Then just replied, “No. no snack boxes from Zambibi.”