It was a very ordinary package. Wrapped in brown paper and tied up with twine, it squatted uncomfortably underneath the brightly decorated boughs of my slapdash little Christmas tree. I got a chill every time I passed by it.

The label seemed to shriek at me in a mocking tone, From Satan! From Satan!

From whom, now?

Yeah. Always proofread your letters, kids. Spell checker can...overlook things. Important things.

Very important things, such as whether you are writing to the jolly old elf at the North Pole for a new pair of snow boots--or to the fallen angel Lucifer of Hell for god only knows what.

I hadn't checked my spelling. Oh no, too good for a read-through, no chance that I'd transposed a couple letters and accidentally broken the seal to the Underworld. Not me. Why, I was really good at spelling.

So when the mail ran and the brown paper package appeared on the front step, I was both shocked and appalled to learn of its origin. The damn thing smelled faintly of sulfur, for crying out loud!

Thus what had hitherto been a sense of pleasant anticipation became transformed at once into a sense of terrible dread. There was a package from Satan under my tree!

The days passed inexorably.

Christmas was upon me!

I faced the hellish package with trepidation, sniffing the whiff of sulfur that still arose from the dusty brown paper. With my tiny pocket knife, I cut through the unbleached twine.

I ripped aside the paper grimly to reveal a square cardboard box, clean but rather dented, smelling even more sulfurous than the wrapping. I lifted the lid with trembling hands.

"Augh!" My own face confronted me unexpectedly. At an unflattering angle, no less.

I looked down at myself (and up) in confusion. The mirror was shiny new, with a simple yet elegant filigree frame, tasteful arabesques. I met my own reflected eye and shuddered. In the mirror my gaze seemed full of rage. I saw my dainty features all dark and twisted, and I had to look away. Evil thing, I thought, unsure if I meant the gift or my own self.

Boo, said my face in the mirror, and I slung it edge on like a boomerang into the wall. It left a deep dent in the drywall before shattering.

I looked at the mess.

I met my own gaze, rageful, in a hundred shiny fragments, and I screamed.