Christmas Presents

Ahhhh.... tis the season.  The season for giving a gift to someone you care about.  Thinking, planning, seeking, choosing, purchasing, wrapping.... It's all very important to us as we want to do it just right. I love it!!  Probably because Christmas was such a big deal when I was a little girl.  In our house, presents were closely guarded and well hidden.  Presents were supposed to be opened Christmas Eve.  In our house, we opened presents on Christmas Eve because our mother spun the whack-o-meter and decided presents AND Santa on Christmas Day was too much for us.  Our presents were always beautifully wrapped immediately after purchase, then placed under the Christmas tree.  The year I was 14, I fell into temptation by the devil to open some presents about a week before Christmas.  I was already an expert liar - now I turned into a rotten sneak.  I could peel the tape back without tearing the wrapping paper, unfold the creases, take out the box, open it, admire the gift, then reverse the procedure. I told my sister if she would pay me, I would open hers, too.  But I ruined my holiday.  When we all gathered to open presents, there was no excitement for me.  I had no surprise.  Lesson learned.  And because in our family, one crackpot isn't enough, my mother's sister often added to the insanity in her own fun way.  One year, she and our uncle got in a huge fight a few days before Christmas and in a fit of anger, she threw all their Christmas presents out in the front yard where they laid for weeks.  Then it rained.  And snowed.  The passage of time hasn't allowed me to remember what happened to the presents, but I'm sure there was no good ending to this.  And there was the year my dad presented my mother with the gift of a cuckoo clock.  Very.  Bad.  Move.  One splintered chair,  one set of dishes hitting the walls later, he came up with a piece of jewelry which was bizarrely accepted as if there had been no first act in that nightmare.   Ahhhhh..... tis the season.....  Choose your presents wisely.