no big surprise

My husband does not know how to have a proper Christmas surprise. Last week he came home proclaiming "I bought your Christmas presents!" and made a fuss over hiding them behind his back and putting them away. Ten minutes later, I opened them! By "opened" I mean Micah pulled them from behind his back one by one and gave them to me. Because he insisted. "You can use them right now! Why wait?" is his logic. Oh, does he have a thing or two to learn. I can't believe I gave in. Probably because he also said these were just little gifts, the big one was still to come.

Christmas is about suspense (also something or other about the babe jesus) but please. Christmas is fun as an adult because it's easy to feel the magic you felt as a child, and that magic existed because we got gifts. For free. All we had to do was exist, by golly, and Santa/our parents (does it really matter?) would bless us with New Stuff. When you're little and tree is up for weeks with no present in sight, taunting you, you're taken over by suspense. It was hard to fall asleep on Christmas Eve, so so hard. I would lie awake for hours listening to my parents clean up the Christmas party through the vents, wondering how I could possibly close my eyes for more than five minutes. When I woke up at seven a.m. I always marveled at the fact that I fell asleep at all. Yes. I was that excited.

Of course now that I'm all grown up I have no problem falling asleep on Christmas Eve because I know there isn't going to be shit for me to open at seven a.m. (also, alcohol). The excitement surely fades, especially when you stop living at home. It leaks out almost entirely when you aren't the baby anymore, the granddaughter is the baby, the bestowed upon. The darling, precocious, giggling granddaughter. Your niece. She's fabulous, though she ended the era of you being the baby. And by "you" I mean "me." Still, I will always be apeshit over Christmas. If we have kids, they will feel my enthusiasm and it will fuel theirs, because Christmas is about children more than anything.

Now, what was I saying? Oh yeah. Micah doesn't appreciate the concept of waiting until Christmas to open gifts. I bought him a record player with built in CD, cassette, and radio. Then I wrapped it and put it under the tree and Micah won't know what it is until December 25. He's going to love it, as he has a stack of records he hasn't heard for years. Because I'm a spoiled brat, I made it known that I would love to have a gift to open on Christmas morning. It's our first one together and I would love nothing more than to brew up some coffee, spike it mightily with Kahlua, and sit together on the couch for some quality Christmas gift-giving. Then he can put on some records and I'll set-up my new computer (I wish) and we'll feel ridiculously happy to have one another and New Stuff.

So Micah did in fact go get my "big" gift. And he tried to give it me early, naturally, and I adamantly refused. "No," I said, stamping my foot, "I will NOT open it. PUT IT AWAY! HIDE IT!" Still he pushed. "Come on! Do I really have to wrap it? And you could be using it right now." Such tired reasoning. Hide the motherfucker and don't show me til Christmas. THANKS. He thinks it's cute to give me fake clues, like "The kitty cats really like it. They want to eat it. It's an animal." Or "If we just had some batteries you could be using it right now. We don't have twenty-two double As in the house?" A-HA. You SOOOO FUNNY.

As of right now, I still have no idea what it is and there's less than a week until Christmas. I think I might get my Christmas morning surprise after all, though I'm 98% sure it won't be wrapped.