The Scene staff
Christmastime is here again! But amid all the hustle and bustle, it’s easy to forget the reason for the season: Presents! It’s like the end of the year rolls around and someone says, “Here Justin, take a bunch of crap you don’t need.” Yes, please!
Christmas is my favorite time of year. It’s not that I’m superficial; I just love stuff. Call me a nut, but it seems like every time they come out with a latest this or greatest that, I’m log jamming my Amazon wish list faster than you can utter “obsolete technology.” Come on people, it slices and dices?
Make no mistake; I can give just as well as I receive. You Yankee swap me, I’ll secret Santa you right back, and before you know it, both our stockings will be stuffed fuller than a Christmas goose.
Heck, any exchange where I walk away one electric tie rack richer is OK in my book.
Now we come to my favorite gift of all: cold hard cash. Until recently, this yuletide windfall factored pretty heavily into my year-end budget. Key players include Gramps and Nana, who usually give me $50. Uncle Jim and Aunt Rita forgot my birthday this year, so I look for them to double down on 20 large. Oh, and let’s not forget Mee-Maw’s endearing $2 bills. Let it snow? Make it rain!
It seems like every year the media harks on about how some lamebrain huckster is ruining the true spirit of Christmas. I’m not sure about all that, but it does remind me of a particularly traumatic Christmas experience. It was the early 80’s, and filmmaker George Lucas was once again peddling his way to the top of every little boy’s Christmas list with an assortment of toys tied to his recent hit film, “Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi.”
Every Saturday morning, I would watch those kids on TV playing with their Ewok villages and Jabba the Hut play sets with envy in my eyes and a 1/8-scale longing in my heart. I wrote to Santa every day, but the closest I got was a “Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan” lunchbox. Ugh! Dad tried to make it up to me with his homemade version of Hoth, the ice world, from “The Empire Strikes Back,” but it wasn’t quite the same. That’s great snow. Can we go inside now?
Perhaps Santa was just having a bad year. The next Christmas, I made out like a bandit on “Transformers” toys. I got a 6-in-1 Megatron, all the Autobots and two special-edition Just My Size Optimus Primes. For some kids, divorce can be pretty rough, but for me, it was less about division and more about multiplying! Chimneys, that is. Shhhh! Don’t tell Santa.
I will admit, now that I’m getting older, it seems like Christmases just aren’t the same. I recently got married, and I find myself thinking about what it might be like to have kids of my own.
I imagine their excitement on Christmas morning as they run down stairs to see all the presents around the tree. Their anticipation as they tear into the brightly-colored packaging to see what lies underneath. The joy on their little faces as they look up to say, “Oh my God, a thingamajig with the optional doohickey. That’s just what I always wanted!”
When I think back on all the fond memories of Christmases past and look forward to all the excitement that waits, I can’t help but get a little giddy. Christmas is like a snow day times my birthday times the Super Bowl. The best parts of life wrapped up into one big old package, and it’s got my name all over it.