Christmas Eve

Having put off getting my wife (and everyone else) a gift until today, I piled the boys into the car and we braved the congested streets and actually went to the mall. Every year I think, "I'm going to start earlier, compiling a list of hints she gives me throughout the year, and get something really nice for her that'll make her eyes sparkle on Christmas morning." But it turns out to be the same kind of unlikely declaration an agonized, hungover lush makes when he says, "I'll never drink again."
The roads were terrible, not because of snow or ice, but because of the thousands of other procrastinators on their desperate quests for the last-minute presents. The wait at any given intersection or turn-off was at least ten minutes (if we were lucky), but I was prepared. The boys were all crooning along pub-fashion with the newly-installed cd player as it belted out tunes like "Put down the Ducky" and "The Streak" from their own mix disc while I listened to the book The Fourth Estate (which, incidentally, is absolutely fantastic) with ear buds that insulated my ears from all outside interference. Consequently, I was a very patient driver. The book is engrossing enough to keep me occupied, and while everyone else seemed to be in some sort of high-stakes race, I was very calm and collected.
Inside the mall was another matter. All the entrances to all the shops were congealed with a mass of shoppers, but we squeezed through somehow. I had to remind the boys we were shopping for mom everytime they stopped to look at a remote-control motorcycle or some lethal weapon. They had their own ideas of what she would like for Christmas, all well over our price limit and outside the realm of her taste. We finally saw some piggy banks that were kind of cute. She collects pigs so we were getting closer. Unfortunately, the one they picked had "lingerie money" embossed on the side. Since that's probably not the kind of sentiment a woman likes to get from her sons, we settled on "vacation money." Heaven knows she needs a vacation. I still didn't know what to get her myself, but I felt like I had travelled across the country and I was ready for a break so we went home. I ventured out again later and it had gotten worse. I still don't know what to get her. I know that she got me a subscription to a guitar magazine. She's not that easy to shop for, though. She likes plants and books, but she gets all the books she wants from the library and has no desire to read them again, and whenever I buy her plants they turn out to be poisonous and we can't have them around the kids. She has told me that my being so nice to her while she's been sick is Christmas present enough. I don't know. Sounds like a trick to me.
For dinner we decided to get the kids' ultimate Christmas Eve meal: We risked mad cow disease and got McDonalds.
After I ran around the neighborhood giving out the requisite candy-filled gifts, we watched "It's a Wonderful Life." I know people think it's overly-sentimental or simply overplayed, but I love it. I've seen it at the very least thirty times and I still bawl when I watch it. And I don't wait until the Auld Lang Syne seen to start blubbering, no, my eyes start brimming at the very start in anticpation of the emotional moments. I do my best to hide this from my wife who I think has become jaded from too many viewings, but of course I can't and I'm sure she thinks I'm a sappy idiot. I would love to be able to caterwaul like Diane Keaton does for days in "Something's Gotta Give." But I wouldn't be a man then, would I? No, I'd be Diane Keaton. Who, by the way, doesn't look good naked. Then again, neither do I.

I'd better turn in so I'm not the Christmas ogre I usually am. But before I do, I'd like, once again, to wish my family and the new friends I've made through blogging a very merry Christmas and a wonderful new year full of joy and excitement.