Longest Movie Night of the Year

Solstice Experience Box 2024

Each year, I design a custom gift box inviting recipients to lean into the Winter Solstice season. Playing on themes of light, coziness, intention, and communal gathering, each annual box has a unique theme and a mix of handmade, local, and carefully curated items.

White cardboard gift box on black backdrop, containing buttered popcorn Jelly Belly candies, film strip patterned washi tape, scented candle labeled "Screenplay," a cardboard stereoscope viewer, kraft paper krinkles, and other items.

For 2024, the theme was “Longest Movie Night of the Year,” an invitation to embrace short winter days as a prime opportunity for activities best enjoyed in darkness. Winter holiday traditions emphasize storytelling and a celebration of the return of light, themes vibrantly expressed in the flickering screens and moving scenes of the cinema.

White cardboard gift box containing krinkle paper and a cardboard stereoscope viewer, folded flat. Yellow paper carnival tickets and popcorn are scattered around box.

Winter is also an excellent time to slow down, so to incorporate a handmade element, I created a “slow cinema” experience using an early optical novelty called a stereoscope. Two nearly identical images, when viewed through a special analog device, produce a 3D effect.

I designed and prototyped a unique fold-flat stereoscope design, and produced the final object on my laser cutter at my Saint Paul studio.

Solstice is a time for gathering with family, friends, and neighbors. To foster the ultimate movie night gathering, I included several scene-setting goodies. Items were locally sourced where possible, including popcorn from Smude’s in Pierz, MN, and immersive “popcorn and cola” candles from Minneapolis-based Frostbeard Studio.

The theater theme was rounded out with treats like classic Haribo cola gummies, plus an enamel pin nod to a cinema-savvy holiday film.

Graphic elements for the box were designed by me, including pinback cards featuring an anaglyphic 3D design (an image technique that functions similarly to a sterescope), and a logo token with “Admit One” on the reverse to be used as a challenge coin or movie night memento.

I also sourced public-domain stereograph images and formatted them for my portable stereoscopes, prioritizing images of winter scenes, celestial bodies, and compelling lighting. These, too, were locally-sourced where possible, and include a scene of the first Saint Paul Winter Carnival in 1886.

Image includes a variety of 90s themed products, include grey and green Reptar socks, yellow and red All That sticker, teal package of Dunkaroos, a little orange monster finger puppet, and candy including Ring Pop, Razzles, Blow Pops, and Airheads.

Other boxes have included a throwback Nickelodeon 90s box, interactive I-Spy boxes, and a kitschy Christmas treat box inspired by old Swiss Colony catalogs.

Three parcels wrapped in bright orange tissue sit on a terazzo-print tissue paper background.

Climate Carnival