47-year-old gift finally opened by girl who dumped boyfriend

“Love Is: New Ways To Spot That Certain Feeling” with a cartoons and sayings about love.

“The irony is extreme,” Allen cried.

The event was a fundraiser for the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton, a local charity that provides Christmas meals to families in need.

“Love is all of us, all of you, here tonight for the Christmas Bureau of Edmonton,” Pearce responded.

Days after Pearce’s story appeared last Christmas, a friend who knew them both in high school sent Allen a link to one of the many articles written about it. Allen responded by clicking “like” on some of Pearce’s Facebook posts, and Peace figured out who it was. They got in touch, and eventually Pearce and his wife were invited to meet her where she now lives in British Columbia.

They learned that they all got along. They also learned the reason Allen dumped Pearce all those years ago.

It turned out that while Allen was shopping for Pearce’s gift at the mall, she met another boy and he kissed her on the spot.

“It wouldn’t have been so bad, but I kissed him back,” Allen said.

She said she knew Pearce would find out she had betrayed him. She knew it was over between them.

“It was a very innocent relationship. We were in high school,” Allen explained about her relationship with Pearce.

“I didn’t know he felt as intensely as he did.”

For years, even after he’d married, Pearce still placed the dogeared gift under the tree every Christmas. He enjoyed the mystery of it, but eventually his wife put her foot down when their daughter, then five, wanted to open it.

“She said, ‘Daddy, when you die, I’ll be able to open it then, right?’ I told him he could keep it, but we just didn’t want (the gift) out in public,” she explained.

“I’m pretty secure in our relationship. I’ve never been jealous.”

Allen admitted some trepidation about meeting Pearce and his wife. Was he a stalker? He was a nice boy in 1971, but maybe, she thought, “he’s probably become an expert axe murder.”

Some people had accused Allen of being a terrible person for giving Pearce a Christmas present and then breaking up with him. Pearce has also been called everything from “Heartbroke Bloke” in the British press to “moron” in one New York newspaper.

He’s since written a book about the whole experience, and his wife and Allen contributed chapters.

“I think it’s absolutely fantastic that we’re friends. My wife is friends with (Vicki),” Pearce told the crowd.