The Pile

Every Christmas, my desk at work gets buried by a pile of boxes, cookies in plastic bags, cards, and other gifts.
The cards, I read and throw away.
The cookies, I eat.
But the boxes, I stack up and stare at for hours.
I try to imagine what’s in them.
When other people try to tell me what was in their boxes, I stick my fingers in my ears and shout “DON’T RUIN THE MYSTERY!”
Now that I’ve been here for a few years, the stack of boxes is a bit unstable.
But my contemplative vigil remains steady as ever.