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 years, Mom has attempted to motivate us by saying, "If Santa doesn't get a list from you, he probably won't bring you anything for Christmas." In the extreme, I think it was either Teddy or Allison that once gave Mom a Christmas wish list so long it required a staple. I'm not sure which of these practices came about first -- perhaps it's like the chicken and the egg. But Dad made it incredibly easy for Santa by declaring each year that all he wanted for Christmas was socks. In fact, he probably could have opened packages of white socks all day long and been satisfied.
A few Christmases ago, Dad received a pair of blank VHS tapes -- if you've ever wondered what the letters "VCR" used to stand for, it had something to do with these "tapes" and the flashing numerals "12:00" -- which excited Dad because he could never find a blank tape when he needed one. A little while later, while Dad was in the bathroom, someone (it seems like something that either Ben or Allison would have suggested) decided that we should re-wrap Dad's blank tapes and give them to him to open again, just to see whether he would notice. We four kids sprang into action, with the grace of a ballet and the precision of the Blue Angels. I even think we had to make a new tag. All this accomplished, and Dad was only going #1.
So Dad opened the tapes, for the second time, and paused...and then said, "Great, more tapes!" And by that point none of us could hold in our laughter any longer. The thing is, I still don't know whether Dad ended up disappointed that he didn't actually get four tapes in all.
I'm pretty sure it was either Ben or Allison who made the suggestion, because they each have a history of gift hijinks. A few years ago, Allison opened her last present under the tree, and it was a pair of red slacks from Gap. Mom looked at Allison for a few seconds, and then asked, "Who gave you those?" It turns out Allison had bought them for herself and wrapped them for fun. I think she even snuck the package under the tree just a few minutes before she opened it.
Also, one Christmas when she was still really young, Allison signed her gifts as being from "Allison Claus." To this day I only borrow that phrasing when it seems entirely appropriate, lest I diminish its brilliance.
Ben, not to be outdone, once gave Dad a manually-altered card that read, "It's A Boy! Birthday!"
Perhaps, then, my gift to Allison last year wasn't so out of character for our family after all:
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