A Story About Christmas

In Which My Parents Pull a Fast One

Hey. It’s me, Matt. It’s been a while, I know, and I’m sorry about that. This was a year! I have some good news about Trails, Tales & Ales coming soon, but that’s a 2024 problem. For now, I wanted to share a fun Christmas memory with you today.

Growing up, my sister and I were absolute stinkers around Christmas. In 1993 or so, a snow day forced Mom to leave her Plymouth Sundance at home and take the bus to work—so we watched her trudge down the street, opened the car trunk as soon as she disappeared from sight, gawked at our presents like buried treasure, and debated how to act surprised when they appeared under the tree a few days later. Another time, we took Mom’s warning to stay away from her bedroom closet as an invitation to, well, raid her bedroom closet—and see our eventual Christmas haul.

Like I said, total stinkers.

It was around this time that Mom and Dad finally got one over on us—and gave us a story that we’d be telling friends for years to come.

But before we get there, we have to go back to one year before the Christmas in question. My sister and I were 11 and 13, give or take a year, and were old enough not to believe in Santa—but still young enough to lose our minds on Christmas morning.

We woke up at 6 a.m. and, with all the subtlety of a fire alarm, informed Mom and Dad that we were ready to open presents. It couldn’t have taken them more than five minutes to throw on robes and start a pot of coffee—but it felt like hours to our frenzied minds. So we plopped down on the floor, peered at our presents … and organized every last gift in the pile. Within minutes, my presents rested on the fireplace while my sister’s sat on the floor beside her.

As you can imagine, my parents didn’t love this. Half the fun of Christmas morning, after all, is digging each present out from under the tree, one by one, and handing them to the lucky recipient. But my sister and I had upended the tradition and left the base of the tree as empty as the day Dad had put it up. What could have been a jovial scavenger hunt turned into a clinical game of tennis—back and forth, back and forth, my sister and I taking turns opening each gift as our piles slowly dwindled.

We forgot about our indiscretions approximately two minutes after opening the last gifts and digging into our stocking stuffers—but our parents did not. Little did we know, they’d hatch a plan to restore the balance of gift-giving power. Katie and I had flown too close to the sun, and our wax wings wouldn’t make it to next Christmas.

The following year, we once again woke up at 6 a.m. We hooted and hollered for our parents to get up. We ran to the tree. We sat down at its base. And we picked up the first gifts we saw.

One was addressed, not to Matt or Katie, but to … a plus sign. No joke: The gift tag simply read, “+”. Another was gifted to the Heartbreak Kid. (I was a pro wrestling fan, and Shawn Michaels—also known as the Heartbreak Kid—was one of the WWF’s top stars at the time.) Another present was addressed to Portland Trail Blazers legend Clyde Drexler. Another was made out to “➗”. We dug through every present in the pile, but not a single gift was actually addressed to Matt or Katie.

When Dad walked out of the bedroom, he did so with the biggest Cheshire Cat smile I’ll ever remember seeing on his face. His brown eyes lit up like Christmas lights when he saw our confusion. In his hand, a yellow sheet of paper lined up each fake recipient and who that present actually belonged to. He slipped it into his robe pocket and said that we’d open our presents when he was good and ready.

In all our Christmas mornings together, I don’t ever remember him taking longer to start the coffee and settle onto the couch. If he could have kept us waiting by mowing the lawn or painting the house that morning, I have no doubt he would have.

Eventually, that’s how Christmas morning went: I would pick out a present, ask who should get the gift addressed to “My Only Sunshine,” wait for Dad to scan the list, and pass it to my sister. Katie would pick out a present, infer that the present for “Clyde Drexler” was probably for the family’s biggest Blazers fan, confirm with Dad, and hand it over. On it went, my parents high-fiving each other the whole time.

I guess it shouldn’t be that hard to outsmart a teen and preteen, but credit where credit is due: Mom and Dad got one over on us that year. We never separated our Christmas gifts ever again.