Merry Christmas and welcome to my blog. So, this morning my girlfriend, Charlene, and I decided to start a new Christmas tradition. We went to Wawa for breakfast. I got a 10-inch meatball sub, a root beer, and a 99-cent bag of air with some sour cream and onion potato chips. I ordered Charlene a bowl of pancakes and a tongue-scorching hazelnut coffee. She refused to let me order her the bowl of pancakes at first. She said, “I’m not in the mood for a bowl of pancakes. I’m not even really hungry”. But, I insisted. I explained that it wouldn’t feel like Christmas if I had a meatball sub and she didn’t have anything to eat from Wawa.
Wawa for Christmas breakfast wasn’t our original plan. We actually wanted to go to Perkins. We got in the car and drove over there, but they were closed – and so were the Americana Diner, the Cobblestone Diner, and the Four Seasons Diner (all within 2.5 miles of each other). We only had three choices left: White Castle, the Grand China Buffet, or Wawa. If it were up to Charlene, we would have gone back home and poured a couple of bowls of Fiber One cereal. But, that just didn’t feel like Christmas to me.
On the ride back home, Charlene laughed, gave me a look of disgust, and exclaimed, “Ugh. I just caught a wiff of your meatball sandwich! I think I’m gonna’ vomit.” She made a few retching gestures and asked, “Who eats a meatball sandwich at 9:30 on Christmas morning?”
“This guy does,” I replied. “Get used to it. It’s tradition now.”
It turns out that a meatball sandwich tastes just as good at 9:30 in the morning as it does at 12 noon. And, Charlene practically inhaled that entire bowl of pancakes. She didn’t even save a taste for Zigzag, our German Shepherd. So much for Charlene not being hungry or in the mood for a bowl of pancakes.
Charlene and I didn’t have any gifts to open this morning. That’s because we exchanged gifts on December 17th: the day after my birthday. I suggested we do that because I was feeling greedy for more presents after my birthday -- and also because I was excited to give her the gift I had just purchased for her. I sent her a text message from the store where I bought her present. It said, “I think we should exchange gifts tonight.”
“Ok,” she wrote back.
Charlene was waiting for me on the futon with Claws, one of our cats, when I got home. She usually greets me at the door with Zigzag – except when Claws or Mr. Howell (our other cat) are around. She loves them the more than she loves me and Zigzag and I do have evidence to prove it. But, we’ll talk about that another time. Anyway, Charlene started laughing at me as soon as she saw me. “What is that?” she asked as she eyed up the gift I had under my arm.
“What do you think?” I responded.
“Whatever it is, I can tell you wrapped it,” she said.
For some reason I felt like I had to defend myself and said ,“I had to wrap it in the car so you wouldn’t know what it is when I walked in.”
It was true. I made a special stop at the Dollar Tree before I came home where I bought some tape and the most expensive wrapping paper they had. I wrapped her gift in the car – and it was harder than I thought it would be. I didn’t have much room to spread out, no scissors, and I couldn’t see shit because the asshole in SUV parked in front of me was shining his headlights in my eyes the whole time. The final product, however, didn’t look much different than if I wrapped a gift in perfect gift wrapping conditions with the perfect gift wrapping tools.
“Are you sure you want to exchange gifts tonight?” Charlene asked. “You’re going to be upset when you have no gifts to open on Christmas, are you?”
“Yeah. Let’s do it.”
Charlene hesitated for a moment and then said, “Okay”. Then she excitedly ran over to remote control and turned the TV to the Christmas music channel. It was now officially Christmas in our world.
Me, Charlene, Zigzag, Claws, and Mr. Howell all made ourselves comfortable around the Christmas tree. Charlene handed me my first gift. It was a small box and all I could think was that I was about to be engaged -- and that there better be a nice sized diamond in there. I opened it up and, instead, there was a note that said: “Pooh Bear: Your real gift was too big to wrap so come with me into the laundry to find it.”
Charlene popped up from the floor and led me to the laundry room. “You know what it is, don’t you?” she asked. “You saw it already, didn’t you?”
“I have no idea what it is,” I said. “Why would I know what it is?”
“I think you know what it is,” she said as she pulled out this giant box. “You know what it is, right?”
“I still have no idea,” I explained as I began opening the box.
It was a bass guitar! And, I had no idea that’s what she got me before I tore the open the box. Well, actually… I had some idea because a few weeks ago she forced me to tell her what I wanted for my birthday/Christmas and then made me take her places where these things were sold. A bass guitar was the first item on my list.
“You knew what it was, didn’t you?” Charlene insisted.
I was really excited about my new bass. I couldn’t wait to plug it in, turn it up, and begin disturbing our downstairs neighbors, the Bunkers.
We made our way back to the Christmas tree where I handed Charlene her gift. I prefaced that I spent a little more on the gift than our agreed $150 limit. She shot back and said, “Obviously I did too.”
She unwrapped the gift like she was playing a scratch off. She’d tear off a little piece of wrapping paper and try to guess what it. Then she repeated the cycle until it was totally unwrapped. And, then she still looked at it like she didn’t know what it was.
I knew it finally registered when she realized I didn’t just wrap some cheap junk in an HP box – and that there was actually an HP product inside of it: an HP netbook to be more specific. “Really?” she questioned enthusiastically. “You got me a computer?”
“Well, yours is a piece of shit. You really need one that works.”
“It’s awesome! So cute and tiny! I love it!”
She gave me a thank-you kiss on the lips and asked, “Do you want to open your New Years’ gift too?” Of course I did. She quickly snatched up another gift from under the Christmas tree and handed it over to me.
I was pumped. It was a Metro PCS phone with a Qwerty keyboard and camera. The technology of this new phone far exceeds that of my blue Samsung flip phone. T9 would soon be a thing of the past for me.
All the gifts had been exchanged and Charlene asked, “Don’t you think it’s going to be sad on Christmas morning when we don’t have any gifts to open?”
“No,” I answered. “I still get lots of gifts from my family on Christmas.”
“Well, there a few more things I’d still like to get you for Christmas,” Charlene announced.
I knew what that meant. There were a few more things she’d like for Christmas too. So much for me trying to be responsible with money. I was going for broke.
A few days before the nationally recognized Christmas holiday, Charlene insisted she come with me to pick out presents for my brother, his wife, and my mom. She dragged me to a bunch of girly stores like 'Bath and Body Works'. She had a real talent for choosing presents for the women in my family. She did, however, cross the line hen she decided we were getting skin care products for my brother too.
He didn’t want skin products. He wanted a man's gift -- like a flashlight. But, I was outgunned. My gift choices for my brother were between Jack Black’s skin care kit and ‘Anthony’ shaving lotion kit. I went with Anthony since Jack Black was too expensive for a gag gift that my brother would never use.
Charlene and I celebrated our 2nd Christmas the night of Christmas Eve. We both bought each other a lot of clothes. And, surprise, surprise - nothing I bought her fit.
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