Our Spirit of Christmas

My family’s favorite part of Christmas isn’t receiving gifts. It’s not giving gifts. It’s using trickery and guile to find out what they’re getting from each other before Christmas.

By using “they’re” instead of “we’re”, it may appear that I consider myself an outsider to their shenanigans, one who holds surprise to be the best part of gift giving and looks with dismay on anyone who seeks to corrupt the joy of the unknown before the appropriate day.

It may appear this way because it is absolutely true. I love surprises. They love CSI: Christmas Scene Investigator. We battle yearly, the purist vs. “This one is practically unwrapped already. Might as well open it now.” I always lose, it’s just a matter of what degree.

Yesterday, I was wrapping their gifts in a bedroom in my Mom’s house. I knew ahead of time this was a huge tactical blunder, much like a dopey security guard walking in one of the worst neighborhoods in Brooklyn and swinging in each hand a large bag with a giant $ sign on it, while singing “Whistle While You Work” to himself and pausing occasionally to adjust his boxers or wave to strangers.

It was the only time I had to wrap the gifts, but I can blame no one but myself for what happened next. First, Tina tried the blunt approach. She walked in the room and began searching through the big bag of gifts that I brought. ‘Tina, what are you doing?” I snapped. She looked hurt. “What? I thought they were wrapped.”

Okay. Perhaps she didn’t see the scissors in my right hand. Or the wrapping paper strewn on the floor. Or that I had to spit out a piece of ribbon in my mouth before I could scold her. She stomped out of the room. “Everyone, watch out. Jason is Mr. Cranky Pants today.”

I could still hear the cries of “Mr. Cranky Pants” after she went downstairs, so I shut the door. I didn’t want to shut the door, because a closed door near Christmastime attracts a lot of attention in my family, much like a suitcase handcuffed to a courier pokes the curiosity of even the most virtuous.

A few minutes later, I realized I forgot to bring name tags for the gifts, so I opened the door a crack and slid out to grab some downstairs. Right after I put my foot on the first step, I heard a soft voice whisper behind me, “He’s gone, let’s go!” I turn around to see Michele and my Mom make a dash for the room.

I chased them down and shoved them out before they could discover anything. Then I locked the bedroom door, and, I’m being completely serious here, shoved a laundry hamper and a chair in front of the door to barricade it lest one of them pick the lock. Which they have done before. Usually with a letter opener, but they’ll use a paper clip if they have to.

After I finished wrapping the nameless gifts, I brought them downstairs. A luxury the family did not always have. After our dad passed away, there were a few hours in the day when Mom was at work and the three of us were at home, unsupervised. Michele and Tina used this valuable time for many tasks, one of which was to unwrap and rewrap their gifts.

They could have got away with it too, if they weren’t so proud of themselves that they burst into laughter in the midst of unwrapping presents Christmas morning (or occasionally crying to Mom a few days before Christmas because they unwrapped all their presents and found that they weren't getting something they really wanted). My family isn't Jewish, but we know the meaning of chutzpah.

Leaving gifts under the tree is no longer a risky behavior. Michele and Tina view surreptitious unwrapping the same way they view the Barbies and My Little Ponies they played with as children. They have moved on long ago to more sophisticated techniques.

All of which they learned from my Mom. Michele and Tina have come a long way, but they’re still not even in the same league as her.

This year, Tina had a good idea. Knowing my Mom loves to find out what she’s getting ahead of time as much as she does, Tina called Mom and proposed a trade: I’ll tell you one gift you don’t know about if you tell me one gift I don’t know about.

Mom agreed, and asked about the heavy, thin object. Mom thought it was a Picasso painting. Unfortunately it was a baking sheet. Tina asked about a medium-sized box, and found out Mom got her wine glasses.

Tina called Michele to crow about her cleverness.

“Guess what. I got Mom to tell me one of the gifts she got me.”

Michele knew most of the gifts Tina got. “Which one?”

“The wine glasses. I told her about the baking sheet, and she told me about the wine glasses.”

“Tina, you fool. Mom didn’t get you wine glasses. She hid the real present in a wine glass box."

"WHAT?"

"Oops. I wasn't supposed to tell you that."

As Tina and Michele were retelling the story on Christmas day, Mom shook her fist triumphantly. My Mom, the master bargain hunter, managed to get something for nothing again. Michele blabbed the goods to Tina, but Mom was still victorious: she pulled a fast one over her gullible kids.

I forget how I learned that Santa Claus isn’t real. I have a hunch though Mom had to resist doing a fist pump and saying, "Yes!" afterwards. And that, if I have kids, it will be hard for me not to do the same.

Update: After Tina read the post, she said, "I found out Santa didn't exist when Mom asked me to write his name on a gift tag."

Pretty Cute Kitty...

One of the Wii Kitties.

I have a lot of things I want to write about, but if I don't write them down soon, I'm going to forget them. Notes for myself:

sake, Mom's Christmas tree, family comments, podcast, bad dog, james bond, robot chicken, "let the cat out of the bag", poop bag review

Funny Onion Story

I missed this when it first came out:
Kevin Federline, Wife Divorce

Doggy Senility

I read a blurb in Psychology Today that 90% of dogs have a moment of senility by the time they are seven. How does a creature that chases its own tail, eats poop, and says hi by sniffing each other's butts have a moment of senility?

Broad Daylight: Derogatory to Women? You Decide.

No one gets killed in daylight anymore. When there's a news report on a day time killing, the person is always murdered in broad daylight. It reflects a sense of shock and outrage. Murder, we made a deal: you get the night, we get the day. But when death slips into the sunlight, it better have a good reason, and a gang shooting in front of a school yard doesn't cut it.

How are we supposed to feel when someone is killed on a cloudy day? Rain? The evening after daylight savings time, when someone expected there to be more anti-evil rays (sunlight) then they are on that day? News reporters should be more descriptive about the weather at the time of death.

"A bus load of children holding puppies selected for extra cuteness was killed in a head-on collision with a demon-possessed clown car driven by Michael Richards. Police say that Richards may have been distracted by the tornado wrestling with a giant rainbow."

I need to know how to feel when someone dies, and "broad daylight" doesn't illuminate my feelings the way it used to.

I Got Me In'Net!

The DSL service was activated earlier than I expected. Remember when I said in my last post how it was nice to be without Internet access? I lied. That was just to trick the Access Gods. IT WAS HORRIBLE. I spent hours each day, staring at a blank monitor, clicking my mouse like a puppy locked outside a house and pawing a frost-covered window.

The experience did give me valuable insight, thought, that will come in handy if I ever decide to live like a half-naked barbarian.

I missed you SO much Internet. This was the first time in years we were away from each other for more than a week. It was a difficult time. I admit, at times, I thought about having a fling with a trampy dial-up connection. Just for a day or two. But I held strong, and can still make up and respect myself when I look in the mirror. Which I won't be doing much of now, along with shopping, visiting art galleries, or frankly, leaving the house at all.

We have a lot of catching up to do, but once we're done reconnecting, I'll be back to my regular schedule of posting twice a month.

Where Have I Been?

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. Last week, I had my 30th birthday party. It's the first time I went out with friends for my birthday in almost a decade. For much of my life, I felt like I didn't have many friends that liked me enough to come to a birthday party, so I rarely had one. I feel blessed to be in a different place in my life now.

Also, two months ago, I vowed to myself that I would move out of my Mom's place before my 30th birthday. I was a day late, but I did it: I moved to NE D.C. It took a lot of hard work and\or me doing absolutely nothing while an opening came up in my friend Meghan's place and she asked if I wanted to move in. This just goes to show you that if you have a specific goal and focus intently on it and/or scratch your balls while random events in life conspire to deliver your goal to you, you can achieve anything. I am submitting a longer version of my inspiring story to Parade magazine (Motto: "Thank God We're Free").

The house is big, old, roomy, and has lots of neat quirks about it. There are cupboards everywhere, some of them 10 feet above the ground. There are about 3 dozen light switches in the house, none of which do what I expect them to do. For example, the garbage disposal light switch has three settings: Off, On, and Really On. Off and On do nothing. Really On, lifting the switch a little bit past the On position, like turning to the 11 setting on a Spinal Tap speaker, activates the disposal.

I like the place a lot, and both my roommates are awesome. We don't have Internet access though, and won't get it until next Friday, so I haven't been able to update the blog or do much besides check my email at the library occasionally.

When I have had Internet access, I was on the Internet for at least 2-3 hours almost every day, mostly playing online poker or reading poker web sites. Occasionally I would watch TV. We have neither Internet access or a TV at the moment, and I'm really surprised how little I miss it. I haven't been bored or going through withdrawal symptoms, as I do sometimes in the past. I'm happy in a way that the DSL won't be activated in a week. The only hassles are checking my dog walking schedule, posting on the blog, and checking my email, the total of which I could do in 15-30 minutes. I like being disconnected, although the second we get net access I know that I will likely fall in my old time wasting habits.

I'm going to try to upload something I wrote about the new James Bond movie before the post becomes irrelevant with time. Besides that, I doubt I will be able to update the blog. Check back in a week. I hope to have a few substantial posts ready to go by then.