This holiday buying cycle promises to be a time of prosperity as the rising economic index indicates a surge in domestic purchasing habits and a return to traditional fiscal responsibility, with same-store sales growth tracking nearly 7% over last year’s… are the kids gone yet?
Good. Let’s talk about Christmas presents.
Every year around this time (defined in the Gregorian Calendar as “right after Labor Day”) we are reminded of the true meaning of Christmas. Songs and cards and cartoons strive to instill in us the glory of the season, the joy of giving, and the miracle of the approved religious ceremony of your choice. But none of them really touch upon the very best part of this jubilant holiday: messing with your kids’ minds.
At no other time of the year are you allowed — heck, encouraged — to taunt your children so blatantly. Your kids can see there’s something for them, waiting for them under the tree, and they can’t have it yet. “Whoops, you can’t open that until Christmas! Too bad, ’cause it’s soooooo cool! You’ll never believe how unbelievably fantastic that thing is that you can’t touch for eight more days! It’s really expensive, too, it’s a… whoops! I almost told you! Ha!”
It eats at them, that knowledge. For weeks beforehand they can think of nothing but that brightly colored box, or the mysterious bag in your bedroom closet, or the bundle in your trunk you won’t let them see, and they shake like little heroin addicts. It’s great.
Antagonizing your loved ones is a proud Christmas tradition, and my mom was the master. The size, shape, and weight of a box were never reliable guides to its contents. Small items like jewelry might be in small packages, or they might be in the box the tree came in. Larger items, like a car, might get taken apart and wrapped up in 1,117 different little boxes and bags, with the last one containing a wrench set and the keys.
Being a wise woman, she never labeled anything so I couldn’t play spy with nail scissors and replacement tape. Instead she’d wait until Christmas morning to tell me which color paper meant gifts for me.
We got her back one year, though. Dad bought her a nice watch, which we packaged thusly: we took a holiday wine bottle box and put a brick in the bottom, followed by padding, some loose bells, a small bottle half full of water, a handful of sand, more padding, and the watch. By December 24th she was twitching, reduced to wild guesses about mutant snow globe/hourglass devices.
Christmas just isn’t Christmas if you can’t drive a loved one insane. With our kids we’ve always preferred the “shock and awe” techniques. When Star Wars figures were hot, we spent weeks buying up Stormtrooper characters so our son would awaken on Christmas morning tied down with dental floss and surrounded by rows and rows of the Imperial Army.
One year he woke up with a 6-foot tall inflatable Godzilla looming over his bed, and the abruptly terrified look on his face made all those hours inflating the stupid thing outside in the cold worthwhile.
This year I’m considering taking a page from mom’s book and not labeling any presents. I won’t tell which one’s which afterwards, either. I’ll just sit back, sip my eggnog, and watch my family and friends fight it out with Yule logs to see who gets the DVD player and who gets the “$1 Off Car Wash” coupon.
Time with your families. That’s what Christmas is all about