December is a hefty month for the Joos family. At least it used to be, when my sister and I still lived with our parents in Belgium. On December 6th we would celebrate St. Nicks, Europe’s slightly archaic ancestor of Santa Claus. Controversy aside, the holy man (i.e. dad) brings toys and sweets to kids by scaling roofs and sliding down chimneys. Then comes Christmas Eve on the 24th. Mom cooked dinner and we all opened presents. We kept some for the next morning too, just to prolong the process and wallow in each other’s creative generosity. But the best part about December is our birthdays. Mine is on the 29th and Evelien’s on the 31st. And we refused to let anyone lump in all the occasions into one big, pulverizing gift. Instead we spent millions on wrapping paper and hours on ripping it back off again!

But now the family’s split up. The parents are still in Belgium, I’m in Los Angeles and Evelien is in New York. The idea of gifting and celebrating has become just as complicated and intense as our long distance relationships. It has also become increasingly rare that we spend the holidays in the same place. I might be headed to Mammoth or the Grand Canyon or Budapest this year – nu clue yet – and Evelien will be off to Cuba with her husband, while mom and dad are having dinner with close family. So when Hewlett Packard asked me to participate in their #ReinventGiving campaign, and choose a dear someone to gift their new Spectre x360, it was an easy decision. My sister is always working remotely for work and I know she’d love the touch/flip screen. I flew to New York a few weeks ago and well, check out the silly home video we made and see what happened… (Side note: wait for the bloopers!)

I would’ve said: “Don’t try this at home”, but the great news is that HP is having a sweepstakes to give away six of these Spectre x360 marvels. So maybe you can go and scare the living daylights out of your friends too ; – ) All you have to do to enter is comment #ReinventGivingSweepstakes on my Instagram post @jxxsy, and the winners will be chosen at random next week. So exciting!! But hurry up, it’s ending soon!

Good luck!!

And Happy Holidays!!