I ordered my wife's gift a few days ago and over the weekend we planned what we will gift to family members.

In years past I've gotten gifts as much as eight months early if I found the perfect gift.

Back in 2002 or so I got the perfect gift for my now ex-brother in law. He was a huge Hitchcock fan and a coworker who collected life masks ended up with an extra Hitchcock.

Now life masks were made for special effects in movies, and were essentially a cast of the head used to make models.

For most of a year I had a paper bag on my living room table, the top neatly folded over.

I got to experience the joy, over and over, of people asking what was in the bag, telling them it was "Alfred Hitchcock's head," and seeing the shocked reaction when Hitchcock stared back up at them.

And the jerk of my ex-brother in law loved it too.

Edit: I figured I'd put in an image of an identical life mask, what people would see when they peek into the bag: