Day 2: Come On Down

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Intro: The 12 Days Of Christmas Memories
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 Closing
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For many years now, Santa Claus has left a present for each of us kids in our bedroom. Strangely, we wouldn't discover this present until the middle of the day, after all the other presents had been opened. This has even continued into recent years when we don't live at home -- apparently when Santa sees me when I'm sleeping, he thinks it's in the blue room. (Should that be capitalized?)

I thought it would be a nice treat to have Santa give my parents this same type of plus-one present. But seeing as how I couldn't get an appointment with the big man -- apparently "tall for an elf" is not a compliment -- I had to take matters into my own hands. And so it came to pass that last year, on Christmas afternoon, after all the other presents had been opened...Allison, Teddy, Tiffany, and I invited my parents to come on down:

"You're the next contestants on The Price Is Right!"

Our host was "Allison Bob Barker," Teddy was our prize model, Tiffany was our overenthusiastic third contestant -- she bid five hundred dollars on a six-pack of Dr. Brown's -- and I was the man behind the curtain, er, couch. Mom won the first pricing game, which earned her the chance to play the minigolf game Hole In One (Or Two)...or however many tries it actually ended up taking her; I blame the groundskeeper for leaving the carpet so long. Her winnings included some peppermint dipping spoons from Crate & Barrel; being a good son, I would later consume half of them.

[As I wrote this, it became obvious to me that the game we should have given Mom is Cliffhanger, with Teddy as the mountain climber.]

The item up for bid in the second pricing game was a large box of Mike & Ike's. Tiffany bid eight hundred ninety dollars. Dad, not surpringly, was closer without going over. And at this point we brought out...the Plinko board. Allison had constructed a ping pong ball Plinko board out of foam board and push pins, and mounted it on Ben's old tripod easel. There were only two landing zones at the bottom of the board, labeled 1 and 2 for the two different prizes available. Dad was given one ping pong ball to start, and he won a second by correctly guessing the price of one of those 99-cent cans of Arizona iced tea. You know, those cans that have 99¢ printed right on the side? Dad begrudgingly guessed 99 cents. So the intent was for Dad to use his two ping pong balls to win the two prizes. Out of solidarity with Mom, I'm sure it was, he needed more than two tries to do this. But eventually he claimed the two prizes, cashews and a bag of coal.