3 posts tagged “christmas”

Christmas this year comes with a little guilt, and a lesson learned. Shopping for gifts for distant relatives has made me realize just how distant they are, and how out of touch with them I've grown.

Sadie and I bit the bullet last weekend and headed to the mall to shop for gifts. We're shopping primarily for our parents, brothers and sisters, and the associated in-laws. We wandered from one store to the next, bleary-eyed and empty handed. Nothing stood out. Nothing screamed "Buy Me! They'll love it!" After two hours we left the mall with one gift, and the feeling that it will be mediocre at best.

Everyone on our shopping lists is 800 miles away in Louisiana. This Christmas is the fourth since we've moved, and in this year we've seen our family the least since moving away. Our families have almost become strangers, and it's nobody's fault but our own. Without asking them for a list of things they want, scratching everyone off our list will prove difficult. Simply picking something off a list is so impersonal.

I'm unsure of what the solution for this year will be, but next year I'm going to attempt staying in touch more. I hope to go beyond email and Facebook too. I'm going to try phone calls, and letters. If it takes scheduling that time into iCal to do it regularly then that's what I'll do. I'm very anti-phone call. Talking to my mother once a week is a chore, but feeling this way about my family is worse. A few extra hours a month on the phone will be worth it if the next time a birthday or Christmas rolls around and I'll instinctively know what they want.

I miss these people, and I don't want the distance between us to loom so large. I want to buy gifts for dear friends and relatives, not strangers.
 

Have you ever secretly unwrapped a gift before the big day? 
Submitted by Red Pen.

My brother Brodie and I did this one year to the extent that we ruined Christmas. That year we knew that one of our presents was Super Mario Kart for the SNES. My parents both worked so every day for the entire Christmas break--which back then seemed to stretch on for months--we would unwrap the game, remove it from its packaging and play it until one of them came home. Every day. We unlocked all the stages, won all the trophies and raced each other for thousands of pixelated miles. We played the game so much that by the time we actually "received" the gift on Christmas Day we were over it. The game had become a non-present.

That same year my Brodie also got Tom Petty's Wildflowers. He unwrapped it too, and listened to it several times before Christmas. A few days before Christmas he decided to re-wrap the CD and place it back under the tree. He needed a way to get the shrink wrap back on though, and came up with the idea of wrapping the CD case in plastic wrap and microwaving the whole thing. You can probably imagine how successful that was. Everything was fine as the first few seconds clicked off the microwave oven's timer, then the blue arching electricity happened. Before we could turn the thing off, it turned itself off. We opened the door to find, to our surprise that nothing was broken, burnt, or melted. The plastic wrap didn't shrink around the case of course, but no damage had been done. Or so we thought. In the end we simply wrapped the CD and stuck it under the tree hoping our parents with their pre-coffee early morning eyes wouldn't notice the missing plastic.

Christmas morning went off without a hitch. We acted surprised and pleased with everything, full knowing that our crowning gift, Super Mario Kart, was worthless to us. Only later that day, when my brother was about to listen to the CD did we discover what had taken place. The arching electricity inside the oven had shattered the disc, or at least the gold, recorded on portion. The clear outer layer was still intact. The album was unplayable.

We attempted to persuade Mom and Dad that the CD must have been sold to them in that condition, but the jig was up. They had known all along that we had been opening our gifts. They knew the lesson we would learn on Christmas day as a result.

Sadie called me at work today to let me know that my Mother-in-Law, Patty Jones, was purchasing a Wii for me. She had just stumbled across one while shopping at their local Wal~Mart. I had planned on waiting outside target last Sun with some friends, but instead contracted an alien death-virus that kept me indoors and mostly immobile until Tuesday, so this was great news. When I head home this Sunday for Christmas my Wii will be waiting, and the hunt will be over.