Since it's September 25, exactly 3 months away from the Christmas Holidays, I thought I'd share with you one of the traditions we had in my family growing up, especially since it feels like fricking December outside right now. My family was pretty tiny. My parents divorced when I was 7, and when I was 12 my big brother left to go into the Marine Corps. Once he left home, it was just mom and me. Mom did her best to make every holiday special, and Christmas was almost always one of my favorites. But from the time I was 12, I almost always made things pretty easy on my mom. It sort of went like this:
Mom: Here's the Sears catalog, pick out a few things for yourself.
Me: Like, clothes?
Mom: Yes, maybe some outfits and if you see any toys you might want, circle them and we'll see what we can do.
Me: Bitchin!
Ok not really, but the reality of it was, she was a single, working mom, taking care of me, the house, the bills, the laundry, etc. so if Mom needed easy, easy she would get. So I'd follow the tradition of going through the Sears catalog (and on an aside here, does anyone REMEMBER how BIG the Sears catalog was back in the day??? Jesus, you could stand on the Sears catalog and reshingle your roof without the aid of an extension ladder, it was THAT BIG!) But I digress. I'd search the pages and find some pretty tops and some dorky pants (I didn't own my first pair of jeans until I was like, 15. Geek? Party of one? Your pants are ugly). And then I'd flip to the back of the book where the GOLD MINE awaited me. Snoopy snow cone makers!! How effing cool were they??? Barbie three story town house WITH THE WORKING ELEVATOR!?!?!?! Oh my God it was almost to much to take in!!
So getting back to the family tradition, I'd pick out some stuff, Mom would order it, pick it up, wrap it and on Christmas morning I'd open my presents and say "Wow, I love this top! How did you know???" or "Oh Mom I love these pants!! All the dorky 12 year olds will think I'm the shit!" Ok that wasn't actually the tradition. The tradition in my house was, you went to Midnight Mass (which was at 8:00, I think our Monsignor may have had plans at midnight so he always went a bit early) and then came home and you got to open one present. Now, remembering everything you've read up to this point, can anything ever really be a surprise here? Well guess what! You're right, nothing was ever a surprise. Until the one year I went a little nuts and circled a cork board in the Sears catalog. I wanted a Snoopy cork board for my room so I could hang up stuff. Like my posters of Scott Baio and John Stamos (don't judge, Chachi was my world before he was Charles in Charge. Blackie Parrish said goodnight to me every night from my walls and my cork board). Now the year I picked out the cork board, everything went as planned. Mom and I went to Midnight (8:00) Mass, came home, lit the fire place and I got to go through my presents and pick one to open. Since I knew what almost everything was, it wasn't like I was going to open one and say "Oh my God!!! It's they keys to a DeLoreon!!! How did you know??!!?!?!" But there was this tiny little present on the floor behind all the boxes of tops and dork pants. And when I picked it up, it made a funny sound. "What's this??? I don't recall circling anything this small!" Could it be a surprise??? Could Mom have gone for the two point conversion??? How cool!! I would FINALLY be surprised on Christmas!! Life was going to rock. I was going to open this little noisy box and find a pretty necklace or earrings that I wasn't expecting!
I tore open the pretty wrapping to find...........push pins for my cork board.
Surprise!!!!! Do you LOVE IT?!?!?!!
