A Cup of Christmas Mania
By Wayne Pike

I was lying on the couch after supper tonight admiring the Christmas tree. Visions of recent lutefisk
suppers danced in my head and occasionally I thought I could still taste it even though it has been a
couple weeks. My mind went back over the years with fond memories of Christmas past. The next thing
I knew, a ladybug was biting my right eyelid. Those darn things are everywhere this year. 

Getting back to my Christmas memories, I gazed again at our tree, fresh out of the box and grandly festooned with family keepsakes. It is a marvelous effect although I have very little to do with the festooning. My wife is the “Grand Festooner”. The rest of the family, four festoon-challenged males, occasionally get to watch her place each decoration in precisely the correct place. The kids get to festoon their own small tree in their living area. I don’t really care to festoon around the house, but I sure like to use festoon when I write. Festoon, festoon, festoon. Just can’t get enough of it at Christmas. 

There are even a few gifts under the tree even though it is days before Christmas. One of these days I will have to get busy. I have a hard time with shopping. When I walk into a store to shop for my wife, my mind goes blank. I tend to mentally misplace the subtle hints she gives me throughout the year. She has even teased me over the years about shopping for her at one of those mall stores that sells only women’s intimate apparel. She said I would not have the nerve to go into one of those stores. Last year I called her bluff. I walked in by myself. My mind did not go blank. Instead, I went blind and turned invisible. All the “intimate apparel” looked the same. It would have helped if it was “one size fits all” and “all colors match any complexion”, but that was certainly not the case. The young ladies who worked there, all young enough to be my daughters, knew better than to come and help a pathetic forty-something old man like me. They knew that I was a completely hopeless case who could never make up his mind and just might be dangerous. The clerks helped the women customers while leaving me wandering daft and dazed amid the fishnet and satin. They knew their chances of making a sale to me was such a long shot that I wasn’t worth their time. I gave up and got the heck out of there, feeling guilty as could be and not knowing why. I hoped the security cameras hadn’t gotten a good look at my face. I’m sure it was festooned with crimson. 

As I lay on the couch, I thought back to some memorable gifts that have been given or received over the years within and around our family. There have been some good ones and some great ones. Then again, there have been some really bad ones and I would like to list a few of them for you as something of a gift-giving guide.  

This list is by no means any reflection on the gift-giver who in all cases really thought that these would be good gifts. Maybe you guys out there can take a hint or two from this list. I begin my list with a gift that I presented to my lovely bride. 

1. Bug and tar remover. I don’t remember what possessed me to give my wife a bottle of bug and tar remover, but there was some motivation for it that escapes me now. Sometimes I think I must be nuts. I knew I had gone over the edge even as she unwrapped the package. It was the finest bug and tar remover money could buy, but it just didn’t cut it that Christmas morning. I’m just glad I didn’t get the economy size.
2. Speaking of nuts. Some people like nuts, the unshelled kind. They were popular around my house when I was a kid. My brothers and I cracked the walnuts with our bare hands. Those big brown nuts are just a cruel joke. By the time you get done tearing them out of their shells there is nothing left. Nobody needs nutshells laying around the house at Christmas time either. If you have kids they will find that the nuts make wicked missiles and can dent drywall.
3. Jack knives. I’ll bet I have ten jack knives in my junk drawer. I’ll bet I have twenty scars on my fingers from misusing them when I was a kid. I’ll bet I have forty scars from using them since I’ve become an adult. Jack knives are dangerous and the people who sell them ought to be forced to live on nuts for five years.
4. There is a toy out there that is called a Domino Raceway. It consists of hundreds of shards of domino-shaped hard plastic that must be separated from a plastic tree, trimmed smooth, and then inserted into a track. The idea is that the plastic dominos all stand up in this track and then you knock them down like dominos. When my son and I were recovering from the flu soon after Christmas one year, we spent four hours putting this toy together. He made it work once and said, “That’s dumb” and walked away. I, too, was fascinated.
5. For God’s sake, don’t get your wife any bug and tar remover. How many times do I have to tell you? Save yourself.
6. Speaking of the flu. If you have any little ones around the house, don’t let them play near the Lego bucket until the messy part of the flu is over. Either that or let them play with the bucket without the Legos in it. Oh, yeah. Been there, done that. Maybe that was what I was thinking when I got the bug and tar remover. It works well on Legos festooned with…well, you know.
7. Squirt guns. Why would anybody give kids a squirt gun at the end of December? Trying to give them pneumonia. Or, maybe the flu. See number six above.
8. One of the most fun toys and one of the worst ideas were those pistols that shot darts with suction cups on the end. Those suction cups lasted about five minutes in our house and then the game was seeing if you could shoot your brother in the butt with the remaining dart shaft that you used your new jack knife to sharpen to a point. See number three above.
9. When I was a kid I recall receiving a yellow plastic flying saucer with a crank. You turned the crank and it made a humming noise. A flying saucer with a crank? To my knowledge, NASA still hasn’t tried that technology. It could work.
10. Every kid needs pencils. I remember getting a package of wooden pencils one Christmas that must have been defective. No matter how I sharpened them, the lead broke when I touched a piece of paper. I sharpened the whole package down to nubs and never wrote a word. That was fun.

Well, good luck with your shopping. I hope this helps, but I can’t imagine how except for items one and six. I’m serious, stay away from bug and tar remover.  Happy festooning and Merry Christmas!

Updated November 01, 2005

© 2004 Wayne C. Pike
 Writer  •  Teacher   • Speaker

6540 65th Street NE
Rochester, MN 55906-1911
507-251-1937