Dec. 1: The 49 Christmases of Shteevie
I was born one week after Christmas. That means that by the time my first Christmas came around, I was almost walking. I don't remember what my first Christmas was like. I am told that I was woken up, taken downstairs, and was thoroughly unimpressed with the gifts beneath the tree. I went back to bed.
A few years later, I got a toy horse called Bingo. I liked Bingo. "Horsie," I said as I rode Bingo. There were other presents but I didn't care about them. I just wanted Bingo.
Horsie.
My parents still have Bingo. He is safe in the storage room. There were yard sales but no one ever thought of selling Bingo. Too much sentimental value, I suppose.
Horsie.
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The first draft of this note contained a year-by-year analysis of every single ghost of Christmas Past. I abandoned it. It was threatening to become exhaustive and I was bored writing it. I thought my readers would get bored reading it. So instead, let me reminisce about all the December 25s that have come and gone. I will give you the highlights.
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Baby sis and I will tell you the story of garage and village. It has been told here before. It will be told again.
Dragons live forever but not so little boys and girls. Baby sis and I DID grow up and - for me, at least - the gentle innocence of Fisher Price gave way to Star Wars. Mom sold the garage and village at a yard sale somewhere. I saw the garage at the Williamstown Fair this past summer and it punched me right in the childhood. Hurt too.
Sentimental me - when my niece and nephew were the ages baby sis and I were a century ago - I got on ebay and spent way too much money on a garage and village. Had 'em shipped to Calgary for Christmas. My mom, who often scolds me about my foolish spending habits, had nothing bad to say about that waste of money. Everyone knew that niece and nephew were products of the 21st century - that they wanted flashier toys than garage and village. But none of that mattered. The gifts weren't for niece and nephew anyway. They were for baby sis. They told her that I loved her and that though blood unites us, what she really is is my oldest and longest-lasting friend.
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And there was the Star Wars Christmas. I think there were two of them, actually. 1978 and 1979. I got five Star Wars action figures (NOT DOLLS, ACTION FIGURES) in 78 and the friggin Death Star in 1979, can you dig it. My best friend got the Millennium Falcon for Christmas and the two of us spent hours in our own Star Wars fantasy land.
1980: That was the Christmas that I started getting out of the mainstream and developed more eclectic tastes. As evidence, what I really wanted for Christmas that year was ELECTRONIC DETECTIVE!!!
I saw a commercial for Electronic Detective on TV and it was love at first sight. At the time, I wanted to be a detective and I wanted to catch bad guys, especially murderers. I couldn't do that in real life, so Electronic Detective let me do it in make believe land.
I was seven years old when I got Electronic Detective. I think I was the only Grade 2 kid in the world who specifically requested Electronic Detective. No one in my class wanted to play it with me; they certainly had no interest in playing it at my eighth birthday party just one week later. Sucked to be me.
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Somewhere in there, we got a Commodore 64 for Christmas. We used to fight over who got to be on it but my brother got out of the fight when he got an NES and I told him I didn't care if he had it in his room. Maybe he thought I was being really generous but I never cared about the NES. That was his baby and he was welcome to it.
But the Commodore... sure I had my share of games. There was Jumpman and there was Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar (still my favourite video game of all time) but it also had a primitive word processor called Paperclip 3, which I used to write my fledgling novels. I credit that old computer for fostering my writing career. If I never had Paperclip 3, I might be making a living in strip mining or cello string manufacturing.
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The normal trajectory with Christmas is that at first, the joy is in the receiving. Then the joy is in the giving. When you're six, you lie awake in bed on Christmas Eve wondering what's going to be under the tree for you. When you're 20, you lie awake wondering how people are going to react.
One year, when money was tight, I wrote out my memories of all four members of my immediate family. I had them self-published too with nicely designed covers and professional typesetting. My dad has his copy on display on his bookshelf. My mom, sister, and brother threw theirs out because they don't like me.*
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Money was tight during Christmas of 2002. I was standing in the Home Hardware in Stettler, Alberta, wondering if I should spend my last $50 on a remote-controlled truck for an eight-year-old kid named Ben out in Kingston. I'd already bought him five presents - some books, glow-in-the-dark stars for his bedroom walls - but nothing that really, you know, boss. I explained my predicament to the non-commission earning sales clerk and she said: "You know, you never see a U-Haul behind a Hearse."
Good sales clerk. I bought the truck.
Sure enough, come Christmas morning and I'm on the phone listening to Ben as he opens his gifts. He thanks me politely for the first five but he absolutely loses his mind when he opens the last one. The ad copy on the truck said it was made for kids 10 and older so Ben thinks that this is real special that he's getting such a mature gift at his tender age.
"Thank Steve for the presents," his mom urges him.
"Thanks for the truck," he shrieks.
The message had been sent. The five cruddy presents had been instantly forgotten. The truck was boss.
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Last Christmas, Ash told me I gave her one of the best Christmas gifts ever. A jar of compliments. It cost me less than $5. The jar cost about $3 from Dollarama. The notebook, also from Dollarama, came from there. I wrote compliments on every page of that notebook and I put them in the jar. My heart was in there.
This year, Lord willing, I will celebrate my 50th Christmas. I think I am cooking a ham and there will be Ovaltine and the watching of the Charlie Brown Christmas special. There will be church. There will be warmth. And someone will likely call me a butthead at least once.
* Just kidding. I am trolling for comments here.
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