So... How was your Christmas?

So... how was your Christmas?

Christmas has always been my favorite time of the year. I think it was because we were growing up in a big household of five kids that there was a lot of Christmas spirit to go around. We would have fun helping decorate the Christmas tree, sorting through the presents under the tree to see what boxes were for who, trying to guess what our Mom and Dad gave us, watching the various Christmas specials on television, singing the Christmas carols at school, preparing for the Christmas pageant, and, of course, the culmination of all those things with winter break and the opening of presents.

As I've grown older, I've noticed that my Christmas spirit has diminished a lot. I think it's because as an adult, you're faced with the realities of Christmas that you didn't have to deal with as a kid. There are bills to pay, jobs to go to, presents to shop for, crowds to face, relatives to face, rough weather to drive through, snow to shovel, trees to set up, trees to decorate, lights to hang up and a bunch of other stuff that seems to squeeze all the Christmas out of Christmas if you're not careful.

I personally dread the coming of Christmas because I know it's going to be hours of me stringing lights outside in the cold wind while trying not to kill myself on a rickety ladder. I'm deathly afraid of heights, so it's an adventure when I have to climb up to my roof to get the lights strung off the gutters. What's worse this year is that the house we have now has rather steep roof angles. My old house was fine because the roof wasn't that steep, and I had no problem navigating the roof, but the new house is damn scary. Last year, I attempted to string lights across the front of the house over my ultra-high peak above my garage and just couldn't make it lest I succumb to the fear and cry like a little girl. So I asked my neighbor to do it, which he did. This year, he wasn't around so I had to figure out another way to get the lights across my triangular peaked roof above my garage. I bought some roof hangers that will slide under shingles or hang on a gutter. The hangers have a hole in them so you can screw a broom handle into it, hang it on the roof and then unscrew the broom handle. This process allows you hang without having to get on the roof. Unfortunately for me, even with the broom handle and my ladder, the roof peak over my garage was still way too high. Using that noggin I was born with, I went in McGuyver mode and fashioned an ultra long broom handle by connecting two long pieces of my roof rake handle onto the end of a broom handle that I broke. I then used that 18-foot long pole to fasten the lights to the roof peak. It took a long time, but I managed to get all the lights up without setting one foot on the roof. Getting them down without breaking them is going to be fun, though.

I hear Christmas songs all winter, but still fail to feel the full-on Christmas spirit. Even when I worked at my last job, where they piped in Christmas muzac right after Thanksgiving until New Years Day, I couldn't get into the Christmas spirit. This year was worse because I reminded of how much I hate Mannheim Steamroller, the Chip Davis-led group that has churned out New Age versions of Christmas classics that sound like they were squeezed through a cheesy keyboard. This year, Mannheim Steamroller has a new CD out. Every day, I had to pass a huge billboard on the way to work for the new CD. The billboard has Chip's little daughter dressed as an angel and holding the new CD. The billboard reads, “Won't you buy my Daddy's new CD?”

Now I'm all for cute kids, but only as long as they are mine. This billboard ticked me off a little bit because Chip is pimping out his daughter to sell his new CD (like he needs the money) and he's implying that his daughter is so cute that she should be an angel in heaven. She is a cute kid, but lets not go overboard, Chip. According to his website, he's sold over 36 million albums. Surely he doesn't need to exploit his daughter to sell more copies and his billboard seems to demand that you buy it so he can get more money. Besides, Chip has been responsible for some pretty awful music, which includes the Husker broadcast theme song that so originally goes, “Hussskerrrrs!” followed by dee doo dee doo dee doo keyboards repeated ad nausea.

Even Christmas presents are a bit of a hassle. Every year, I'm asked what I want for Christmas and have trouble coming up with a list. The problem with being an adult is that if you really want something bad enough, you will buy it because you have the money and the will to do it. If you're a kid, you're at the mercy of Santa and assorted gift givers for the things that you really wanted. So I sometimes have to hold back on my purchases so that I have a list of things people can give me.

Usually, my lists encompass things that I'd like to have, but probably wouldn't go buy because they were a little too expensive for a casual purchase or they were things that I'd like to have, but they're not fun enough to buy on my own. There have been years that I've asked for bigger things, but Laura usually groans about that because they aren't fun to buy. One year, I asked for a new CD player for my car. Laura asked, “What kind of Christmas gift is THAT?” in a I-really-don't-want-to-get-you-that kind of tone. I responded, “That's an awesome gift! I'll always think of you when I'm listening to it every day!”, which I did.

So this year, I asked for a paper shredder. I know what you're thinking, “Wow, a paper shredder. What a thoughtful gift for any man.”

I couldn't agree more. I had asked for a paper shredder years ago and got probably the cheapest one from Laura. No matter, it was still a paper shredder. It was a standard one that cut the sheets into long strips. Depending on what you were shredding, it would either shred it or groan to a stop, which then would lead to me digging out pieces of paper from the blades. It wasn't terribly reliable, and it finally died a painful death as we were moving out of our old house. We had spent one night going through our old records and shredding what we didn't want to keep for the move. The shredder progressively started slowing down until it groaned to a halt. After that, it didn't respond. It had moved on to shredder heaven.

I had been meaning to get a new one because I'm always getting at least two pre-approved credit card applications every day in the mail. I had taken to recycling them, but then I saw television reports about thieves going through trash for those applications. I then started tearing them up into pieces, but that's a lot of hassle.

Sure enough, I got my paper shredder and it's pretty nice. It does a cross-cut shred so that it's impossible to piece together anything you shred. Now I'm shredding the shit out of my junk mail, bills and other assorted sensitive documents.

Every year, I give Laura a surprise gift, which is a gift that she never asks for, but I'm sure that she'll like. One year, I gave her a quesadilla maker. Another year, I gave her a bath spa machine. This year, I gave her a pizza stone set.

If there is one thing that Laura loves more than her family it's pizza. She loves it so much that she'd probably marry pizza if she could. I, on the other hand, used to work for a pizza place for over a decade and am so sick of pizza that I could live my whole life without ever eating it again.

I gave her a new stone because we used to have two pizza stones that we used all the time when making pizza (obviously). The first one broke when I pulled it out of the oven and dropped it. The stone had a metal serving rack, and I had made the mistake of pulling it out of the oven without oven mitts on. This led to me screaming and dropping it on the open oven door. Laura was pretty concerned... about her pizza stone being broken. I might have been burned on every finger, but she was pretty pissed about her stone being broke.

That Christmas, I got her a new pizza stone from Dillards. It wasn't as nice as our old one, but it did the job. This one broke, too. Thankfully, it wasn't me that broke it this time. We had used it one night to bake a pizza (go figure). Hours later, we are watching TV in our apartment's living room when we heard a huge explosion in the kitchen. Thinking our stove had somehow turned into a gas stove and blown itself up, I ran into the kitchen to see what the damage was. There on the stove were the shards of the pizza stone.

I learned something that night. If you leave a burner on low on your stove and then place a pizza stone on said burner over a small spot of the stone for over two hours, the concentrated heat of that burner under the stone spot will heat up that spot, but not the rest of the stone and cause the stone to explode. This is probably why they tell you to heat up your oven with the stone inside it, so it warms up gradually. So don't place your stone in a deep freeze and then plunge into the oven on high as it will probably explode.

Julia always seems to get the brunt of the gifts. Every year, I gape in dismay at the mountain of presents 'Santa' bestows up the chosen child. This year was no different. 'Santa' decided that Julia would love a whole horse set complete with three buildings and over a dozen horses. I thought 'Santa' had gone overboard again, but was accused of not being in the Christmas spirit, so I shut up. 'Santa' also gave Julia a Clarice stuffed animal (Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer's girlfriend) from Build-A-Bear, that chain of evil that dares you to go inside it and leave with nothing lest you feel the wrath of sad eyes when your disappointed child leaves with nothing. Julia had seen a commercial advertising Clarice and Rudolph for Build-A-Bear. Julia really wanted it and 'Santa's' helper (me) suggested to 'Santa' that she would love it.

Christmas morning, Julia exclaimed with delight, “Santa brought me Clarice!” She ogled over the clothes to dress Clarice in. She's been carrying Clarice around since Christmas and redressing her in clothes, so 'Santa's' helper was spot on in his suggestion.

Then we unpacked the horse stuff, put the buildings together and set back to watch the fun. Julia played with them for about an hour and then turned on her Nintendo Gamecube.

Weeks ago, I had bought her a cheap game that was the same price as a rental, which is why I bought it so close to Christmas, called 'Ty the Tasmanian Tiger'. Julia could barely play it, but now three weeks later, she can play it for hours without my help, which is what she did Christmas morning. I muttered to Laura, “Santa could have gotten her some games for the Gamecube.” Laura grumbled in disapproval.

Like her old man, Julia is turning into a gamer. It's taken a while, but I've finally gotten her interested in an activity we both enjoy. She's seen me play and solve several games that are insanely hard, so she knows that her Dad is the 'Man' with 'Mad Skillz' when it comes to playing games. Laura is pretty much useless. She worries that Julia needs to play with her imagination, but I point out that she's improving her eye-to-hand coordination and improving her problem solving skills. Besides, she's well on her way to getting a video game testing job like her Dad had back in 1999.

We are trying to limit the time on the games because, after a while, she starts acting like a addict needing a new fix if you try to take her off the game after she's been playing for too long. She knows that too much will 'rot your brain' and is thankfully on board with the breaks from the game while she's on her vacation.

Speaking of vacation, I've been off for the last two weeks with Julia while she's been on her winter break. At first, this was fun, but now the novelty has worn off. I think we're both ready to go back to work. As much as kids might not admit it, they crave structure and stimulation. Julia seems to be going through some cabin fever. We've had to deal with a few tantrums over the video game, cleaning up, bath time and bed time. That ends on Monday.

She'll be back to the daily grind of wishing school was over. We'll be back to thanking God that it's back so we can be back to some structure. I'll be back wondering where Christmas went and wishing for it to come around again. As much as my spirit has diminished, I'm still wild about the season.