The Endless Debate of the Good Box

                 Happy Boxing Day!  Everyone seemed pleased with my handmade gifts, and I have a couple requests for additional goodies, which I should start pretty soon, before I forget them.  I'll start looking for patterns after I finish the thank you notes this weekend.

                I have a conundrum, though.  My mother sent a bunch of presents via the mail this year, since she couldn't travel to us, which makes perfect sense.  The conundrum is that she used a good box.  She didn't just use a decent box.  She used a really good box.  It's so good that it has contents listings in three different people's handwriting.  It appears to be from at least twenty years ago, back when cardboard boxes were more than mere flimsy covers for products' modesty, but legitimate security for your stuff.

                This is a really nice box.  It's that magical size that one would be hard pressed to overfill to the point of not being able to lift it, and the cardboard is really solid.  You could set something heavy on it, and it wouldn't collapse and break Grandma's good dishes (one of the labels declares it was used for this).  It's about as solid as the legal books shipping box Mom sent the last bunch of stuff in, which is also sitting in our garage for discussion.

                Fuzzy's entire reaction to this has been, "It's a box!  We don't need more boxes!  We are recycling the box!" like he was raised by wolves or something.  I know he wasn't.  His father kept good boxes, too, because sometimes, you need a good box, and it's not worth going to the store to buy a box when perfectly good boxes keep showing up at your door via the Postal Service.

                We don't really use cardboard boxes much, as we prefer the translucent boxes that will survive the active storage of our garage (Fabric goes out, fabric comes in.  Lego goes out, lego goes in, and so forth.), but I still get stuck on the idea of holding on to the good boxes.  We're unlikely to move any time soon, and if we do, we're likely to buy the boxes that will provide consistent stacking in a moving truck.  I rarely ship anything in a box that isn't flat rate.  We typically donate things to the thrift store in bags, as they are currently overwhelmed enough that it seems cruel to add to the bulk.

                I think Fuzzy slipped it into the recycling bin while I was cleaning the sewing room yesterday.  I'm conflicted on whether I'm disappointed or relieved.

                It is a really nice box, though.