Christmas 2015 taught me several valuable and surprising lessons. One such lesson is that there really is such a thing as too many presents.
I know, I wouldn’t have believed it either!
For the last ten years or so, Jay and I have hosted the Pivec family Christmas Eve party. When we started there were the only children left in the family as everyone else who still lived in the metro area had grown up. We included as guests that first year, several couples we knew who had no family in town. Since then, those kids have grown up, several of that generation have gotten married and had kids of their own and our friends have divorced, remarried, retired and relocated. The party itself remains the same but the attendees have aged and multiplied so we’re back to having lots of little kids tearing all over the place. It’s wild, crazy and more fun than I can describe.
Ty and Megan have always come home for the Holidays and since they moved back last spring, this year they would get to sleep in their own beds.
Two months ago, Ty told me and Jay that he and Megan wanted to take over hosting duties on Christmas Eve.
Jay, who loves to play the Grinch, has been trying to dump the party for years. I don’t know why; he clearly loves being the ruler of the game. Maybe too much. (He cheats.)
I loved hosting: I love not having to watch the clock, not having to watch what I drink and best of all, not having to get in the car and drive anywhere afterwards. It’s a pot luck party so its not even like I had to worry about having enough to eat and drink and we always got to keep tons of leftovers. I love being at home the moment the last guest has left, playing Santa Claus and indulging in my own personal Christmas Eve tradition: watching the X-files Christmas episode: How the Ghosts Stole Christmas, all by myself after the kids went to bed.
Ty’s plan allowed us to indulge in all our favorite traditions: he invited us to spend the night and open presents with the grandbabies in the morning.
Most of us were on board immediately. Katie and Zack weren’t sold on sleeping over but Katie’s husband Adam saw the advantages immediately and Zack didn’t want to drive so he was kind of stuck.
Since I wouldn’t be playing Santa at home, I made things easier on myself by transporting bags full of gifts out to Ty’s house every time I visited in December. I spent several days painting the mural in the basement so I was out there a lot and every time, I brought with me piles of wrapped and ready presents, which I stashed in the closet in Ty’s office, assuming it was the last part of the house where the kids were likely to look.
First lesson learned: Kids Look Everywhere.
One week before the event, Babydoll was visiting her Daddy in his office and before he could stop her, had thrown open the door to his closet, which already contained several piles of brightly wrapped packages.
Ty managed to convince her that they were birthday presents (his was the day before) that he hadn’t had time to open yet and she shouldn’t worry about them.
Being three, she bought it.
I did most of my Christmas shopping online. My kids are smart and they simply email me their wish lists, along with links to whatever and I can just click on what I want to buy or start looking for similar items in real life.
So Amazon has been delivering a lot of stuff here. Things come, I wrap them up, drop them at Ty’s and forget all about them. It didn’t seem like I was getting all that much, since I never really had it all in the same place at the same time. Oh heck, there are a lot of us, I didn’t get all that much for anyone in particular!
Katie wanted mostly books and TV shows. I was done with her shopping in under a half an hour. I like to get them a few unexpected items as well and saw some neat stuff at Marshall’s or TJMaxx for my working girl daughters.
Josie and her cousin Meg are running off to London for a few weeks over break. Josie’s list included some things she wanted to take on her trip, including some very spiffy looking clothes.
I hate buying clothes online.
You can never tell the cut, quality or fit online. However, her links did give me a good idea of what she had in mind.
Some of us chipped in and bought the two of them theater tickets to see a show while they’re in London; that was a nice surprise!
Josie’s Dad paid for her passport, which we advised her to have sent directly to the house, so she wouldn’t get hung up at school in case it was late. No problems; it arrived at the house a week ago.
One of the things she sent me a link to was a duster length tweed jacket. Very English looking. Josie’s tall and slim and can pull off that kind of stuff. I was never tall but I used to be thin (yeah it was along time ago, what’s your point?) and I still think I can pull off that kind of stuff. Then I see pictures and realize how delusional I am. Oh well. Me and Don Juan DeMarco are happy in our delusions.
Zack’s list was all books, movies and cds. I was done with his shopping even faster than Katie’s.
Ty and Megan’s list took a little bit of doing but only because I’m cheap. They converted a third of their basement area into a home theater with a drop down screen and ceiling mounted projector. Ty told me months ago that all he wanted for Christmas were cool movie posters to line his walls.
Easy! The hardest part was getting Ty to stop buying them for himself. He got Jaws, the Sandlot, Casablanca and Star Wars before I could stop him. So I went online and bought five of the best movie posters I could find.
That part was easy. The hard part came in the framing. I could have gone to Target and bought five dirt cheap frames but I hate those four piece push on poster frames. They’re hard to hang and they don’t last. I’ve had to replace all the ones I used to have in my own basement. (we don’t even have the large screen TV that used to be down there. Now that the kids are all gone, we only have two TV rooms instead of three. Lots of TVs has been the secret to family harmony.)
Having 24”X36” posters professionally framed is insanely expensive. I never considered that for an instant. No, what I did was start haunting all the Goodwill stores in the south metro. You can usually pick up a pretty good poster frame for under ten bucks. I got some with actual glass in them and painted them all black to match. I didn’t bring any of them over to Ty’s house before the party because I didn’t think he’d be able to resist peaking and I didn’t want him to know which movies I’d chosen.
So many great movie posters to choose from!
Movies these days rarely have great posters. They all look the same; a huge photo of the star’s face, half lit. Boring.
I had a lot of fun with those. On the 23rd, I framed and wrapped all the new posters.
In the past, I’d always made a huge pot of gumbo for the party. I couldn’t figure out a way to transport a huge pot of fish soup across town that didn’t end with my car smelling like rotten fish for the rest of eternity, so I got all the ingredients and sent detailed directions to Megan. She made the gumbo and it turned out spectacularly!
The Children’s mass at Ty’s church began at four so the plan was to meet there, attend Christmas mass together, then head to the ranch and party till we dropped.
I made a list of all the things I had to remember; the cookies, the last gifts, and our overnight bag.
One of the things I didn’t want to forget was a gift for Josie. In my search for frames, I always perused the womens’ sections for anything tweedy and last Monday I hit paydirt; I found a gorgeous, wool jacket beautifully cut with a leather collar. It was a Ralph Lauren and just in Josie’s size.
You know those ads for Gordmans, where the two ladies show up wearing identical outfits? One says “Department store: $78.00” and the other says “Gordman’s: $35.00”. Josie can now show up in her designer jacket and say “Goodwill: $19.99.”
Winning!
I hung it in my closet. To avoid creasing it, my plan was to wrap it at the last minute. So I added “Wrap” to my list of things to do Christmas Eve morning.
I had just finished tying the bow when Jay brought me Josie’s passport.
“Let’s wrap this up and give it to her,” He said, “after all, it is my present. We just have to be really careful not to lose it.”
Right. I’ve been doing Christmas for 35 years and I’ve never lost a gift. Who does he think he’s talking to? To reassure him, I tied a far larger and more elaborate bow on it than any of the other gifts. I put it on our dresser so we could keep an eye on it.
With mass starting at 4, we figured we should head out at 3. Cookies were unloaded from the garage refrigerator into the back of the van, gifts were carefully transported to the car, overnight bags tossed in the back, the house left with just enough light so it looked occupied, doors locked and Christmas cds in the player!
Over the river and through the woods, we arrived at the church a half hour before tip off!
That’s when I glanced in the back of the van and asked Jay “Where’s our overnight bag?”
Second Lesson learned: Never assume your spouse brought the overnight bag.
There was no time to go home and get it. Not without missing mass and messing up all our morning plans. Visions of over indulging and watching my Grandbabies open their Christmas gifts fizzled in my head.
OR we could tough it out, sleep in our party clothes and skip brushing our teeth. We’d mull it over.
In the meantime, the church was already so full that we had to go sit in the balcony. It’s a beautiful old church, at least a 100 years old. Stained glass windows, painted angels, and elaborate stencils all the way up the soaring ceilings and gold leaf on the tops of the Corinthian columns! I loved it.
We were fortunate to grab the front row in the balcony. Unfortunately, Zack really doesn’t like heights and the balcony rail barely made it to his knees. He was extremely uncomfortable throughout the service. Sweating buckets, in fact. I was uncomfortable too. I am better with heights than he is but the inside seat of the pew was directly under one of those gilded column tops and if I stood up without great care, I’d crack my head on it. So I had to stand bent over, with my neck tipped to the left to avoid head trauma.
Third Lesson Learned: sometimes the second row is better than the front.
By the end of mass, Babalouie noticed that the congregation below was filled with the baby brothers and sisters of the kids singing in the choir up on the altar. He began shouting “Hey, Baby! Hey Baby! HEY BABY!!” at them. He really likes babies.
Back at the house afterwards, we all quickly emptied the back of the van, putting all the family gifts back in Tyler and Megan’s bedroom, to keep them from getting mixed up with the gifts for the game. I had wrapped all the game presents in special paper to distinguish them from our personal gifts so that part was actually easy.
Ty and Megan quickly assured me and Jay that they had extra tooth brushes and plenty of pajamas we could borrow so the catastrophe of the missing overnight bag was forgotten and we settled in the enjoy the party.
It was a rousing success.
The crowd was huge, since most of the branches of the family were able to come. Some of the cousins who hadn’t made it to our house in years, came out to the ranch to play. It’s too bad we had no snow; Megan had wanted to have the horses pull a sleigh ride. Oh well, next year.
In addition to Sophie, who valiantly fulfilled the child in the house duties for most of her young life, we now had Babydoll, Babalouie and two more toddlers of varying descriptions wreaking havoc all over the house and allowing us old folks to get our grandparenting on.
The toddlers loved the play room down stairs, filled with toddler friendly toys, the young men enjoyed the pool table till dinner was served and the rest of the party enjoyed multiple kitchens and fireplaces and food, food, drinks, food and more food and drinks.
Although Ty was the host, he allowed his Dad to remain the ruler of the game.
Originally, we played the game exactly the way you play it at bridal showers: you have to roll doubles before you get to choose a wrapped gift from the pile. Once everyone has a gift, we all unwrap and reveal what we have to the entire party, then resume rolling the dice. Doubles gets you the right to swap; taking what you want from the current possessor. A timer is set and mayhem ensues until the buzzer goes off, at which time you get to keep whatever you have.
This is where Jay cheats: he doesn’t let us roll to choose gifts. Years ago, he decided that takes too long, so he switched it up, because you know: who wants to waste too much time playing a game? At first he passed out cards and let guests choose from high card to lowest but the last couple of years, he’s decided to do it by age.
Because have you ever known a house full of women who didn’t want to shout out their age to the entire party?
FYI: this year I was 40. I’ve been 40 for 15 years. Next year, I’ll be 40.
Lesson #4: He cheats; I cheat.
The worst part of the age thing isn’t the humiliation, its that it actually takes longer than rolling doubles. Half of us can’t even remember how old we are and the other half isn’t paying enough attention to know when their age is announced. It’s not an improvement and I don’t see what was broken about the original design.
The second aspect of Jay’s cheating is that he doesn’t set a timer. He likes to freak people out by shouting “FIVE MINUTES LEFT” which helps no one; you can’t control the speed of rolling doubles. No one is supposed to know how much time is left and Jay isn’t keeping track of it anyway. He just buzzes when he gets bored.
Every year, there are one or two gifts that we all fight for. This year it was framed photo of Granpa Frank and Grandma Pat and a brand new Kindle fire that Ty and Megan got for a song on black Friday. As Josie complained to Jay afterwards: “Why didn’t you buzz while I had the Kindle??”
Lesson #5: If you’re going to cheat, cheat with purpose!
Not that it matters; when the game is done, we all just bargain and barter for what we want anyway.
I got a cinnamon scented candle (I hate candles and anything scented) which I immediately gave to Josie, who loved it. Phanie gave me a wonderful large coffee mug which I gave right to Katie because she asked for it. I don’t know who took either the photo or the Kindle home. Singing, Dancing, billiards and the eating of copious amounts of Christmas cookies took place until people began to pack up the kids and head home.
Babydoll and I put out reindeer food while Jay and his boys enjoyed cigars on the porch. Megan did chores and we cleaned up a bit and let the kids decompress enough to get ready for bed. All was quiet and we began to haul presents out of every nook and cranny of the house.
In addition to the carful of gifts we’d brought over that night and stashed in the master bedroom, I had to bring up all the presents I’d hidden in Ty’s office over the course of the month. Zack unpacked a suitcase in which he’d transported all his presents for everyone. Josie had a couple of shopping bags full of her gifts, Katie and Adam had bags full of things for everyone and Tyler and Megan had a large pile of things for everyone too.
In short, the living room looked like Mt. St. Christmas had erupted and wiped out entire civilizations.
Our plan to retreat to the downstairs movie theater and watch A Christmas Story was thwarted by the fact that I’d packed the movie in my overnight bag. Which, in case you’ve forgotten, was still sitting on my bed, thirty miles away.
So we stayed upstairs and watched Star Trek Into Darkness instead, which I enjoyed just as much. Even better, Katie did a dramatic recital of T’was the Night Before Christmas, followed by a reading of King John’s Christmas. She brought the house down.
Jay had gone to bed in borrowed pj’s right after he wrestled Babalouie to bed around ten. Megan had gone down with Babydoll right after chores were done. Adam had converted Ty’s office into a bedroom for he and Katie and Zack and Josie slept on the pull out bed and giant sectional in the basement.
I crawled in next to Jay and allowed visions of sugarplums to invade my stuffed up head.
All my cold medicine was packed right next to A Christmas Story. Megan actually had some that worked pretty well, along with the new toothbrushes she gave us.
I was the first up. I made coffee and was prepared to sit and work on my needlepoint until everyone else joined me but they began to arrive before I finished my first cup.
Babydoll walked into the living room, looked at the pile of gifts and said “Whoa! There’s a million!”
She wasn’t far off.
Lesson #6: there is such a thing as too many presents and ten people, all of whom like to buy presents for the others…well, you do the math.
It took us nearly three hours to open them all. Jay disappeared to make breakfast before we were half way through. The kids got to the point where they just wanted us to stop bothering them with new packages to open and let them play with the new stuff they already got!
Eventually, we worked our way through the whole pile and everyone had books, candy, clothes, cds, movies, cutlery, toys, electronics and ceramic coffee mugs from England. The last things opened were the movie posters; I handed them out to Megan and Tyler one at a time: The Princess Bride, the Wizard of Oz, Tombstone and Chicago. All of which are favorites of theirs. As Ty prepared to open the last one, he said “This has to be Willow!”
He loves that movie.
“It’s even better.” I said.
He pulled back the paper and said “Oh my God, RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK! It is better!”
At this point, Jay announced that brunch was served. Then he looked at me and asked “Where’s Josie’s present from me?”
He meant the extra special one. The one I wrapped up with the huge bow so it would stand out. The one she was going to need to have in hand in three days or her ticket to London would be useless and her long anticipated trip with her closest cousin would be moot and the show tickets we’d gotten her would be nothing but salt in the wound of her ruined vacation.
There were no more packages under the tree.
Lesson #7: if you don’t want to lose something, it’s a really bad idea to wrap it up like a needle and throw it into a haystack.
We had no idea where Josie’s passport was.
Catastrophe.
If I was going to lose a gift for the first time in 35 years, why couldn’t it have been Zack’s new MyPillow? I know where I can get another one of those right away! Why couldn’t it have been Jay’s box of pickled goodies? Lund’s carries all of them!
I went back and searched the bedroom where we’d stuck the gifts we brought in last night but no white box with a huge holly ribbon was in sight. I looked under the bed. Nothing. I decided to run out to the van and see if it had somehow been left behind.
I couldn’t find my shoes. I’d had them on the night before when Babydoll and I put out the reindeer food and now they were nowhere in sight.
“Pray to St. Anthony, Mom.” Katie said. “That always works; Dear St. Anthony, come around; there’s something lost that must be found. Is that one?” she pointed under the wine cart “Are you kidding me?”
St. Anthony doesn’t waste any time. I jammed my feet into them and ran out to the van.
A quick search revealed no packages, no nothing. We hadn’t left a crumb big enough for a mouse out in that van.
“I’m sure we left it in the bedroom with the overnight bag.” Jay said when I came back in the house. He had to be right. He had to be right.
Trying to ignore the leaden ball of dread in my stomach, we ate brunch. I kept trying to remember if I put that box in the car.
I wasn’t a 100% sure, but I seemed to have a memory of it on the kitchen counter. Had I grabbed it? Had I left it?
Where was it??
Dear St. Anthony, come around; there’s something lost that must be found.
I went through every garbage bag we’d filled with trash. It seemed ridiculous that a 4x4x6” box with a giant bow on it could have been accidentally thrown away but the stakes were too high to ignore any possibility.
I rechecked downstairs even though I knew that particular package never should have gone downstairs. By this point, everyone noticed that I was freaking out. I described the missing gift.
“I saw that on the kitchen counter right before we left.” Josie said. “It’s probably still there.”
Yes. Probably. Did I grab it? Why would I have left it?
WHERE WAS IT?
Dear St. Anthony, come around; there’s something lost that must be found.
Hey. What about my book? At this point, I realized that the book I’d told Jay to get me for Christmas, the Hirschfield Century, which I’d wrapped up myself and clearly remembered putting in the car, was also missing. I never unwrapped it.
I walked back into Tyler’s bedroom. Nothing where we’d put the gifts. Nothing in the closet. Nothing under the bed…
Dear St. Anthony…
I walked around to the other side of the bed.
…Come around…
When she went to bed the night before, Megan must have tossed the comforter onto the floor.
…There’s something lost…
In my frantic haste the night before, I’d completely forgotten that I’d put an entire pile of gifts on the far side of the bed.
…That must be found!
Beneath the blanket on the floor was yet another pile of gifts, and on the top, a white package with a huge holly ribbon.
Lesson #8: St. Anthony never disappoints.
(I actually knew this one already but it’s nice to be reminded.)
Triumphantly, and so relieved I felt light headed, I carried the pile out to the living room. In addition to the passport, I’d temporarily lost my own book, Zack’s new winter jacket and the Ralph Lauren for Josie that I’d scored at Goodwill. We opened the last of the gifts and Josie laughed and laughed when she saw her passport.
“Oh!” she said. “I was kind of hoping it was Bieber tickets.”
Of course you were.
God Bless us, Everyone.