It's Grace's party, she should be able to peel open her presents if she wants to.  I like to do that sometimes.  It depends.

If I were Nanase, I would've said "That's okay" and just kept walking -- unless I wanted everyone to know about my secret crush!

"When I look at the title, I think 'drugs.'"

ROTFL!!!

LOL!  And I'm glad she's still peeling the gifts open.

Now what could Justin and Susan have for Grace, that was either too big to be wrapped, or the shape is too much of a giveaway????

My guess: It's Greg with some martial arts thing* and his offer of training.  Nanase convinced him to come.  He'll stay for cake, but he won't stay for the TFs.

*(which the three of them chipped in to pay for)

My second guess would be some squirrel-theme clothes that she can wear when she starts school.

I love panel 6!!!!!

BTW, I heard a "herbal pest control" guy on the radio who said that squirrels do not like peppermint.  So it might be a good idea to keep peppermint sticks away from Grace, despite her sweet tooth.

The Jeremy-Susan combo in panel 3 is purrrrfect!!!

Awwww.  That was so sweet of Tedd to try to think of the perfect gift, and to wind up buying all those presents!!!  He really deserves that kiss!!!

And the three "brother" dolls are soooo cuuuute!!!  What store did he go to???  Where can I find them???

They are so adorable!!!!!

I wonder if Dan could get the woman who makes the Bun-Bun and Kiki plushies for Pete Abrams to start a line of El Goonish Shive beanie babies?  That would be wonderful!

BTW,  I thought I'd take a moment to say that I'm not trying to hog the Reactions forum or anything -- it just seemed to me that until we got a little more traffic around here, it made more sense to just have one thread for some prolonged segment of the story.  I promise to re-edit the thread's subject line when it needs revising.

My thought was to keep the hearth fire lit until school started up again.  I figured that by mid-September we should know whether more people will post at the Webcomic forums.  The last couple of days have given me hope.

I suggest we go back to individual threads for story days when we start averaging at least 8 reaction posts per comic.

Oh, and for the record, I've been enjoying the "Dan in the MUD" NP story, but I suspect there are RPG levels that I'm not getting.  I love the way the mysterious Leader looks, and the racoon thief is cute.