The next story from the 1998 issue of Oziana is "Ozma's Swap Party" by Jno. L. Bell. It's a nice little slice-of-life story about Ozma concerned about her upcoming birthday party, as she doesn't want her friends to give her gifts because she already has everything she needs. So Aunt Em suggests that Ozma makes it a swap party, where everyone brings a gift, and each guest opens a gift, which they can either keep or trade with someone who's already opened one. (I suspect many of us have participated in gift exchanges like this, under different types of names.) Somehow, a lot of people got what they had come with, but in the end, everyone had fun, and that was what Ozma was hoping to get the most! It's short, but a lot of characters show up and get a moment to shine, and it was all very satisfying and charming.
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This story also began as a riff on the Ozzy Digest/Nonestica email list. Someone didn't know the term "Yankee swap," so I described it using the example of Ozma hosting such a party for her friends in the royal palace. As your remark suggests, the person was aware of the tradition but under a different name.
Robin Olderman invited me to adapt the posting into a story. As I recall, that involved taking out some meta-commentary about Number Nine being under copyright protection, beefing up Scraps's disruptions, and adding the scene at the end where Dorothy sees what everyone has done with their gifts.
I think I've reused the detail of people giving Button-Bright compasses in at least one more story. Not that it has any effect.
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