Spurred on by this post from The Bloggess, who is a delightfully warped person, I dredged up some memories of christmases past. Part of the reason I don’t put a lot of effort into holidays is not, as some clueless people seem to think, from being an atheist, but from growing up in my family. Holidays tended to be overly tense affairs from the belief that things should be traditional, or include certain dishes at mealtime, and should be perfect, and all that hoohah – no small number of people will recognize this, I’m sure. Think of the bride and her mother on the wedding day, then dial it back a bit.
It did not help that my mother, who carried approximately a kilogram of pure uncut coupons in her purse at all times, could not write down christmas lists and carry them with her when shopping, and her memory is of the ‘broad category’ type. My brother wanted a model kit of a Datsun 280Z one year (this was a while ago) and received a Porsche 924 instead – they both had numbers, and that was how she had remembered. I soon learned to take her around the stores and point to exactly what I wanted, which largely worked, but I still got unwanted Atari cartridges because, “I knew you wanted a racing game,” which was true, but a specific racing game. Ah well.
She compounded this as well, in never making a list for herself and almost always claiming she didn’t need anything, making shopping for her a monumental chore (she still does this, by the way.) I was, however, responsible for contributing to her own bitterness over the holidays once. That year, there was a particular perfume she wanted, a rarity, since she generally did not like perfumes. It was called “Lily of the Valley,” and she told me exactly where it could be found – just inside the door of a particular drugstore, with white lilies all over the box. Thus armed, I set out and got her present. Come christmas morning, however, it was revealed that I had gotten the wrong one, disappointing her greatly, especially since she’d been so specific.
Now, in my defense, I had (and have) no idea what a lily looks like, and the display featured not a word or name of the perfume at all – but it sat covered with white flowers just inside the door of the goddamn drugstore. Between her sighting and my shopping, perhaps about a week, the staff had switched displays, I can only assume on purpose. It also must be said that when my mother returned, the perfume was nowhere to be found in the store anyway.
Various places that I’ve worked since then have done the Secret Santa thing, generally an ill-advised system anywhere. Depending on the size and how busy the workplace is, one often has no opportunity to find out what anyone might want for christmas, and rarely ever socializes with coworkers outside of the workplace; if you have it differently, lucky you – don’t believe it’s like that everywhere. On occasion I would have an idea what someone might want, but did not ever draw their name, so that never worked out. I have always been in administration, so my coworkers tended to think I wanted office supplies, despite the fact that I frequently had my camera with me…
One year, when I drew one woman’s name, I recruited another worker to find out what she actually wanted. This worked well; I was told about a particular little blown glass elephant, with a blown glass mouse inside, and exactly where it could be found locally. The other bit of info I received was helpful too: It seems each year my giftee had received a candle during the Secret Santa fol-de-rol (see what I mean?) and had remarked on this curious trait.
At the same time, another coworker, who had briefly been an actress, had let it slip that she’d been in a movie with Chuck Norris, but refused to reveal which one – this tidbit had come about because my giftee had house-sat recently for the actress and had seen an autographed photo of Norris with the actress. Naturally, such secrets are fed on ravenously in most workplaces, and a quest began to determine which movie she’d been in.
“I know it was a western-style movie,” said my giftee while trying to pump the actress for more info, “because he was wearing a cowboy hat.”
I snorted. “I don’t think that means much, since he wears a cowboy hat in every movie,” I said. “I think he was wearing one in Invasion USA, which took place in Florida.” It was one of the few Chuck Norris movies I’d seen, and mostly regretted.
Credit to the actress and her skills, because she didn’t bat an eye at this, and I’d been watching. Once she was gone, several workers announced their intention to find out which movie, plotting delightedly. This was in the very early days of the internet, and few people had access, or indeed a computer. I just picked up the phone and called my cousin in his comp sci graduate office. In less than a minute, the Internet Movie Database had confirmed that our coworker had indeed been in Invasion USA. With christmas rolling around, it was imperative that we locate a copy of the VHS tape to rent.
This proved to be harder than imagined – most video stores had discarded the cassette long ago. Finally, through a confederacy of conspirators, we located the movie, and I sat down with it the day of the christmas party to find her appearance in the film. Fast-forwarding through Invasion USA doesn’t make it any better, and I went through the movie twice before finding her fifteen seconds – there was a horrifying moment when I suspected she was one of the topless dancers in a bar, but then found her part, cued up the tape, and took it with me to the party.
In the meantime, I’d been busy on my Secret Santa thing as well. Going to a cheap drugstore, I located the cheesiest damn christmas candle I could find, this ugly little spherical thing badly made up to look like Santa Claus. I dutifully wrapped and tagged this, but also placed the blown-glass elephant in a plain box simply marked “Mystery Box” – I had given up cursive decades before, but used it (slowly and ineptly) to mark the box so my handwriting would not be recognized. Once at the party, I sneaked this onto the gift table so no one would see who brought it.
When the exchange came around, my giftee had the greatest “I told you so” look on her face when she unwrapped the candle, showing it to my informant wryly. Then she saw the attached tag, which said that she could exchange the candle for the Mystery Box. What was completely unexpected was how bad she dithered over this decision, trying to find out who had done this so she could quiz them over the box. Someone eventually clued her in that it was me, and she pleaded with me to know what was there – she was reluctant to give up that ugly candle. I refused to bargain, telling her I was going to have to take one of them back either way (the candle had cost me a dollar, and was way overpriced at that.) She eventually convinced herself to go for the box, and was exceptionally pleased with the elephant, showing it off to everyone. And then turned to me: “But can I still keep the candle?”
After the exchange, the boss (who I’d let in on the plot) announced that we had a special holiday video to watch, and with everyone’s attention, started the tape. People were a little confused, since it started in mid-movie during a car chase, but in literally two seconds our coworker actress recognized the scene and shrieked, covering her face in her hands. This produced a bare second of further confusion before she appeared onscreen to pummel the villain ineffectually, and the place erupted in laughter. You gotta love it when a plot comes to fruition.
Spurred by The Bloggess’ post, I’ve been trying to figure out my best and worst christmas presents, without a lot of luck. But while I’m at it, I have to give credit to my brothers, who had their own fun one christmas eve. I was to receive a GI Joe ‘Secret of the Mummy’s Tomb’ adventure set, featuring the same ATV that would carry Joe facefirst into the couch, and they set the whole thing up on the edge of the couch (foreshadowing or something) in full action pose, winching the mummy up over the edge. It was, in fact, this set:
There was also one christmas, at the time when I was no longer waking up in excitement at that hour, that Santa himself, jollier than anyone should be at 2 AM, woke us all up and herded us downstairs to receive our presents. Almost all of us, anyway – my brother couldn’t be convinced, but he was likely hungover (I was probably 16, my brother 23 at this point, and mind you I was the youngest.) Also, curiously, my dad didn’t come down either until, with dismal timing, a few minutes after Santa left (some of us did indeed wonder why Santa departed upstairs instead of through the door or, you know, up the chimney of the fireplace that was right there.) This is what you get when your dad is asked to play Santa for the office party, and is permitted to borrow the costume afterward…
Many years later, having moved out-of-state and finding myself with a significant amount of money come christmastime, I deigned to a) fly home during the holiday season, and b) go north in the winter – I said I had money, not sense. While shopping for gifts with my mom, I selected a particular board game for my two young nieces, one that my mother argued would be too young for them. It was called Splat!, and was your typical game where you roll dice, draw cards, race your Play-Doh insect playing pieces to the finish line, and occasionally stomp the hell out of the pieces with a giant plastic hand (that left them squished out broadly with the game’s logo impressed upon them.) When this happened to you, you scraped up your Play-Doh from the playing board, reincarnated your bug in the mold while uttering a little hindu prayer, and started again from the beginning. As might already be apparent from other posts, I have never fully grown up, and I suspected this would be an interesting game.
Now, those of you who have played Uno among family members are well aware of what I’m talking about, when I say that there are games that provoke a lot of ire without anyone really getting upset – that plastic hand was the same as a well-timed ‘Draw Four’ card. Almost frightening was my then-brother-in-law, the girls’ father, who demonstrated his conscientious role-model attitude by wielding that hand with unholy glee every time the game play selected him – this was later to reappear in his daughters’ therapy. He had also, in his delicate youth, learned how to roll dice, something I’d discovered earlier during AD&D sessions. So when it finally came time for us to raise plastic hand over his own playing piece, the Play-Doh smears went across most of the board and occasionally a good stretch of table. If my mother still has that table, I’m willing to bet a close inspection will reveal evidence of that christmas afternoon tournament 20 years ago…
I’m guessing that the worst present I received was a book from my parents, What Color is Your Parachute?, about finding a career. Gifts from unobservant coworkers are at least somewhat expected, but messages of that nature should probably be left for some other time, you know? Meanwhile, one of the unintentionally funniest gifts was from The Girlfriend, who had located a speaking South Park stein for me – press the button and hear a bit of wisdom from Eric Cartman. She’s never been good at interpreting Cartman’s speech, especially from the early days, and even when she gave it to me still didn’t know the gift was emitting, “I’m not fat – I’m big-boned!”
Sound clip courtesy of Hark.com
The stein, it must be said, was stuffed with Almond Joy candy bars…
Best gift? I have to admit christmas almost always makes me think of the Millennium Falcon model kit I got one year – it’s the kind of thing you hope for, big and cool, coming at an age when you can appreciate it most because you’ll never be able to buy it for yourself. It was the original issue that came with lights, and I did that bad boy justice, not just painting it in detail but adding battle damage and a plethora of fiber-optics (scrounged from one of those color-changing hippie lamps that had just fallen from popularity) to add running lights in various locations as well.
Yet, The Girlfriend is someone who gift shops at least half of the year, and is very good about noting when someone wants/needs something; at the same time, she can spot clever, interesting, or novelty gifts. So item for item, she’s got everyone beat by a mile. I try, but I don’t have the same knack. We’ll see, however, how well I did this year.
Anyway, kick back, go mellow, let the rants from neurotic relatives wash over you if you have to, and remember what the holidays are, truly, all about:
Weird stories.