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Posted on December 22, 2009

Slouching Towards Christmastime

by

Christmas Eve is just around the corner, and we’re booked solid straight through from now until the famous fattened elf retires his red suit to the armoire for another year and joins Mrs. Clause in the infamous* North Pole hot tub for some well-deserved relaxation on Christmas Day. Tomorrow, we’re taking Trey for a magical ride to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus via a roundtrip journey on The Polar Express.

In actuality, we’re driving back to the very same train station of indescribable clandestinity that gave us so much trouble back when I drove the family up to meet Thomas The Tank Engine. Fortunately, I’ve uncovered its hidden location and feel confident that we will arrive both on time and in good spirits. The night promises to be a fun-filled outing, complete with Christmas magic, some tasty hot chocolate and, of course, a little quality facetime with jolly old Saint Nick himself. After that, we’re driving the three hours (give or take) back home before going to bed and waking up the next morning for the insanity that is Christmas Eve. It will be a day filled with last-minute shopping and the fighting of uncooperative crowds, followed by family dinner, then church, and then family dinner continued before wrapping up with, well, wrapping up. Presents, that is. Christmas joy. Parental nightmares. Some assembly required…

*The infamy comes from the fact that the North Pole Hot Tub is actually just an oversized bathtub, and that the bubbles are generated by Santa himself, owing to the unfortunate combination of his yearly overindulgence in milk and cookies along with the big man’s poorly-publicized struggle with lactose intolerance. The reindeer know to stay clear of the house at this time, however Mrs. Clause is not so fortunate…**


**It’s hard to do footnotes properly within the rigid confines of the standard blog format, so I apologize for the above indiscretion. Just pretend you’re reading this as a normal book, and imagine that the asterisk drew your attention to the bottom of the page, where a proper footnote would be. Then imagine that the double-asterisk did the same thing for this quasi-footnote, and I promise to refrain from any further manipulations of the accepted reading order of The New Media, but it’s a tragedy I won’t soon forget. I do so love a good footnote, too.
Now, where was I? Oh yes, the annual Wrapping Of The Presents. It is a strange and bitter irony that I, the master of all manner of trivial knowledge and inconsequential skills, have never quite been able to get the hang of gift wrapping. Mostly, the whole sordid affair sees me confronted with a box, some wrapping paper bearing a whimsical design and a hateful disposition, and lots and lots of tape. Tape is so integral to the process, in fact, that I see the entire gift wrapping process as a grand challenge that can only be overcome with a furious and unchecked application of indecent amounts of the self-adhesive sticky stuff. First, I get a good look at the box and size up my opponent. Then, I measure out what I think is a proper amount of paper, but that soon proves to be either woefully inadequate or wholly overabundant. Either way, I measure incorrectly and the only difference at the end is how much extra cutting I have to do with the scissors, and how much tape must be sacrificed for the cause.
After I get the paper bit squared away, it’s time to start securing it to the box to create a festive and attractive gift-giving presentation. Again, this mostly involves tape. More often than not, I’ll use tape to try and cover up having used so much tape to begin with, although such a bizarre practice is never recommended. If I cut too little paper, I try and patch in the holes with strips and squares and tidbits of leftover paper, followed by a few more rolls of tape. If I cut too much paper, then I overcompensate by wrapping the package twice over and binding it all together into a hideous display of crumpled bits of dangly paper wedged between endless strips of criss-crossing tape. Whatever the situation, it eventually comes time to tackle the corners. The dreaded corners, oh how I hate them. The less said about the little bastards, the better – but I will say that the end of an average package will have me alternating between attacks of scissors-fueled aggression and tape-powered repentance. Whatever I do, the whole thing comes out looking like something wrapped by an unhappy elf in the wrong line of work, who’s taking his discontent out on defenseless presents. Then, I pop in the Rudolph movie and pretend to be Hermie The Disgruntled Dentist until I feel better about myself. It usually works.
After the wrapping comes the sleeping, which is followed by the Awakening Of The Trey. I’m sure this will go fairly smoothly, what with the truckload of Christmas presents waiting for him under the tree. He’s received his family heirloom stocking that was knitted for him years in advance by my late grandmother, which will be waiting for him at the foot of his bed on Christmas morning. (Or at the foot of his chair, or on his floor, or perhaps inside one of his dresser drawers. You know, wherever he happens to be when we wake him up in the morning. The boy believes in taking the migrant approach to sleeping.) Unfortunately, since neither I nor anyone in my family is skilled in the arcane art of knitting, we weren’t able to get his name knitted into the fabric – but the stocking is his all the same, and we’ll find someone to knit his name into it next year. Brittany also received the stocking that my grandmother made for her years ago, back before I met her and when she was still my future wife. My grandmother was blessed with both foresight and determination, and she made sure to knit two blank stockings for me before she passed: one to be filled in with the name of my wife and one to bear the name of my first child. And, as Brittany is now officially part of the family, she has hers. Granted, some slight surgical procedures had to be performed upon it to remove the taint of the Nameless One’s blight from the sacred yarn, but since Brittany’s name should have been there to begin with, it was a fairly painless procedure. We’ll find some talented seamstress-type to knit the right names onto the stockings soon enough, but it won’t happen before Christmas. Unfortunately, while I do know someone who’s pretty handy with a pair of knitting needles, I’m not too sure someone nicknamed Hellchick would be the best person to approach for this sort of thing. That, and I’m pretty sure she hates me a lot…
After the packages are all opened and Trey is eager to start playing with his toys, we’ll callously rip him from the rapturous joy of freshly-opened plastic and load him into the car to make the journey to my sister’s house in Houston. Of course, given how much fun he’s had with his cousins the past few days whilst they’ve been staying here in town with my parents, I don’t think he’ll mind too much. Once we’ve arrived, there will be some more gift giving followed by another family dinner, then naps and light-to-heavy snacking. So much of the holidays seems to involve eating, it’s a wonder I manage to keep my girlish figure and stay so damned pretty. It’s a gift, I guess – my own little Christmas miracle!
Finally, after the hectic days of hectic hecticness have come to a hectic conclusion, we’ll finally mosey back home to begin The Period Of Great Rest. Unfortunately, since many of Trey’s toys will require the judicious application of both wrench and screwdriver to assemble, I doubt my rest will be all that great. Still, a little elbow grease and the deciphering of some haphazardly translated foreign instruction manuals is a small price to pay for watching his eyes dance when he smiles as he opens his presents and plays with his new toys. However, there are miles to go before we sleep, and miles to go before we sleep – and Brittany just sat down behind me to get a head start on the gift wrapping. And, judging by the fits of sighs and muffled expletives, I think she wants my help.
I guess I’ll go buy some tape…



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Humor | Nonfiction
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Have you ever lived through an experience that was so humiliating that you wanted to die, but when you tell it to all your friends, they can't stop laughing?

Have you ever made a decision that seemed like a good idea at the time, but you're still living with the hilarious consequences years later?

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You're welcome.

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The nine stories of rage and sadness collected here range from the most intimate of human experiences to the wildest realms of magic and fantasy. The first story is a violent gut-punch to the soul, and the rest of them just hit harder from there.

Those who tough it out will find a book filled with as much hope as despair, a constant contradiction pulling you from one extreme to another.

Life might knock us down, over and over, and will the beat the ever-loving snot out of us from the time we're old enough to give it attitude until the day we finally let it win and stop getting up.

Always get back up.

Gaming | Nonfiction
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This isn't just a book. It's a portal to other worlds where there be magic and dragons and hilarious pirates. Okay, not really. But this book is about those portals, except they're called video games.

The Life Bytes series of books take a deep dive into one man's personal journey through childhood into kinda/sorta being a responsible, competent adult as told through the magical lens of whatever video games he was playing at the time.

Part One starts way back in 1975 and meanders down various digital pathways until, oh, around about 1993 or so.

If you're feeling nostalgic for the early days of gaming or if you just want to understand why the gamer in your life loves this hobby so much, take a seat in your favorite comfy chair and crack this bad boy open.

I'll try to not be boring.

Horror
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What you are about to read is not a story. There is no beginning, middle, or end.

What follows is nothing more than a series of journal entries involving shadow people, sleep paralysis, and crippling fear. It’s not pretty, it doesn’t follow story logic, and nothing works out well in the end.

You've been warned.

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