The perfect care package by the perfect mother
My older son had his first experience at sleepaway camp last week—5 nights, at a camp I visited for over ten years in a row myself.
I know the witchiest take on camp would have been to send him off and enjoy having 50% less kid in the house for a few days and not think of him at all, but I wanted to send him a care package. I remembered the excitement of hearing you had mail at camp—the anticipation of getting the package after lunch, of opening it, looking through the new stuff, and the satisfying feeling of getting things your camp friends also wanted to look at (my witchy friend Kate and I, still friends, bonded over Archie comics my mom sent me.)
My kid does not need more stuff in any way and camp should be its own reward but also, I wanted him to enjoy that feeling I had, too. But the world’s a bit different since the early-90’s or so, the last time I was there. So I asked some witches for their advice on what to put in a care package that might be different from a birthday gift or holiday gift or long trip type purchase.
These were some of the good pieces of advice I got:
“I tried to send things that could be shared. Glow necklaces and Mad Libs were a hit. Maybe a card game like Uno or something. I think I sent a giant pack of Twizzlers since that seemed low on both allergens and mess.”
“I’ve never been to camp and my only reference is Camp Anawanna (we hold you in our hearts) but something silly and novel like a disposable camera or pack of magic tricks? And snacks to share with bunkmates? Do I live in 1990 still?”
“Mad Libs, Pokemon cards, comic books?”
“Silly string, tattoos, water balloons-all of those things are kind of a pain to clean up but fun.”
“I’d say glow things, something that can be shared, a book of goofy/silly jokes. These. I sent him a Pokémon pillow buddy to sleep with once. I always mail my kid some photos of his dog/brother/home. He loooooves to get photos!”
“Go to Five Below and get some cheap fidgety things. Maybe get an expensive card that pops up or plays music. My kid is going to camp for two weeks, luckily his camp doesn’t allow care packages, I fucking love the Quakers, so I’m going to send him a really fancy card to make him feel loved. “
“Last night I threw together a cheap Snapfish photo book for my son to take to camp, and then paid more for fast shipping than the book cost.”
“A hammock! A small game to play with cabin mates, and a book.”
“I now understand why my mom didn’t mail me care packages. Because she was like YOU ARE NOT HERE and I am done thinking about you. My kids are going to camp also. I hate this stupid 5 night camp bullshit and long for 4 or 8 weeks only like my childhood. You can take the girl out of New England but you can’t take the month long camp out of her.”
*
With that in mind I went to an indie toy shop nearish me, and if you have the time to go to one, I highly recommend it. Local toy shop owners know their inventory and have way more fun, quirky items to look at, especially individual small, flat, light things that you can really squish into a 9.5 x 11.5 padded envelope such as I have on hand. (A friend just gave me the hot tip that they don’t sell toys so much anymore at World Market, FYI.)
I ended up going with:
A wacky rubber ball that bounces all over the place
A parachute guy
Mad Libs
A Whoopie Cushion
Glow in the dark pens + a notebook
Temporary skull tattoos I had on hand leftover from Halloween
A little robot guy who lights up when you put him together
A windup hedgehog that spins around and flips over
Some photos I got printed up at Walgreens of us, the dog, my kid’s friends, and of his favorite stuffed animal (whom he left at home)
Not bad, right? And like a bitch who is really on the ball, I even took the package to the Post Office the day before he was due to leave for camp, June 18.
~*except*~
I forgot to incorporate Juneteenth being a federal holiday into my schema, so while the package did get to him, it was on his last night at camp. Ah, well.
Learn from my mistakes. Check the calendar before you go to the post office. Or better yet, skip the care package and just put more money in your kid’s commissary, or forget your kid overall! Camp isn’t free and neither is your time. In fact, to hell with them. Forget I said anything. (But I still think you should go to the whimsical toy store and buy yourself a fun new toy. Don’t you deserve it?)
PS: My son had a great time at camp. After he got back we bonded singing the songs he learned that were from my era. His little brother really enjoyed observing our special shared experience and showed it by covering his ears and yelling “STOP IT!!”
End credits
Thanks for reading Evil Witches, a newsletter for people who happen to be mothers. The archives live here. Sometimes we cover more serious stuff and other times dumb or run of the mill things we need to function in this world.
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I would also like to give a thank you to Doree Shafrir for the shout out in this week’s Culture Study by Anne Helen Peterson, about finding your mom community. I don’t have a social media home page for Evil Witches at this time but if you haven’t found an IRL witchy community and want me to see if there are readers near you who might be up for being a penpal or meeting at the park, reply to this email and I’ll see what I can do. If you’re a Chicagoland witch who wants to say hi, I’m hosting a show in a week that will have several witches in attendance/in the lineup. It’s early so you can go home and go to bed go out to dinner after. I guarantee you there will be sarcastic/cool moms there. And other types of people.
With that said, E.W. is taking this upcoming week off for vacation (I will do the same in late July.
Take care of yourselves, witches. Drink water. Grab some cool dark alone time if you can. And check in on each other:
One witchy thing
Stickers and a deck of cards, 100%. I was such a little cardshark at camp. And maybe still have a foot locker covered in awesome stickers. But also, maybe an address book? That is such an old fashioned thing but writing letters to camp friends was one of the best things ever in the 90s, and honestly I don’t want my kid giving out my phone number to randos.
Also, clear rules about sharing. So your kid doesn’t get a power trip like my bunk mate and decide that the way to get one of her Lion King trading cards was to kiss the outhouse seat. 8 year olds are the worst.
Oh man my time at sleepaway camp as a tween camper and then counselor constitutes some of my all time favorite memories. Maybe the only thing I have FOMO about by not having kids is not getting to send them to camp. And we weren't supposed to get candy either but one girl in my cabin's mom sent her a huge cardboard box of Hostess goodies (Swiss cake rolls, starcrunches, etc) and it was the fuckin' best.