I really loved the red Chevy van that I had purchased in Denver, Colorado in December 1981 so that I could make a trip with my wife and daughter to North Dakota to visit my parents. I remember our escapades driving through the snow enjoying winter inside the van and freezing our asses at the same time because the van was a completely un-insulated cargo van on the inside at the time. It was not the most ideal vehicle to travel in Arctic-like conditions in the middle of the winter with temperatures reaching well below zero. However, what I did not explicitly relate to you was the purpose for that trip. Yeah, you see, normal people like to drive long distances in uninsulated chiller boxes just for shits and grins in the middle of the winter for the hell of it. And if you believe that, I’ve got several hundred acres of prime beachfront property for sale in Arizona. All reasonable offers will be considered. Alrighty then. All seriousness aside. The real purpose of that trip was to travel back to my parents’ house for a Christmas family reunion. All of my brothers and as I found out after I arrived, one sister and a few cousins, would all be attending. Now the way that Christmas was supposed to work that year was that each person was a designated Secret Santa for somebody else, whose name they were given. The rules of engagement were that each Secret Santa was to purchase a gift of no more than $25 in value for the person whose name they had been given. Gifts had to be a minimum value of at least $22 and had to be in good taste and appropriate to the person to whom they were being given. In other words, no gag gifts were to be given. But you know, there is just no accounting for that one dumbass sonofabitch that simply does not either read the letter with the instructions and the rules or once having read the rules and instructions, doesn’t bother to follow said rules and instructions. There’s always got to be one. At least one. You know the one. You’ve probably got one in your family. Unless of course you’re an only child, in which case you’re probably the one. Come on now. Be honest. You know exactly who I’m talking about. I’m not mentioning any names. I’m not pointing any fingers. You know who you are. Anyway, there’s always one. Unfortunately, my family was unduly blessed in that category. That’s right. We had more than one. On a good day, we had two. On a bad day, we had three. That particular Christmas, apparently it was a bad day for Christmas. First, the temperature dropped down to 40 below zero. A winter storm (blizzard) hit the night I arrived in North Dakota. Strike one. The brother who drew my name as a Secret Santa showed up late. Hint, he was one of the rule breakers. He bought me a pair of porcelain chickens. That was his gift to me. He was my Secret Santa. Porcelain chickens. Store price, $13.95. Wow. That must’ve broken his piggy bank. What in the hell was I going to do with porcelain chickens? The sons of bitches couldn’t lay eggs. They were basically useless. To top it off, the porcelain chickens were broken when I opened the box. That was just swell. Value of the gift, totally worthless. I thanked him all the same and loaded those useless ass porcelain chickens into my van and hauled them all the way to the first rest area on the way back to Colorado. Then, they went into the trash can. I gave them a proper burial. The next rule breaker was my brother Ron. He also showed up late to the party. Unlike everybody else, he didn’t bring any gift at all. Well, it wasn’t until all of the gifts were unwrapped that we learned for whom he was supposed to be the Secret Santa. He was supposed to be the Secret Santa for my brother Craig. Unfortunately, Craig received nothing. That’s right. Under the tree, there was a big fat goose egg for good old Craig. Nada. Zilch. Zip. Rule breaker number three. This one, I think, was the crowning touch. My aunt Karen was in charge of stocking stuffers for the small children. Basically, they consisted of my brother Ron’s daughter and my daughter, and our three cousins. My aunt basically bought M&Ms as a stocking stuffer. However, when all of the kids were eating M&Ms, she took the candy away from my daughter and made her cry. When I heard my daughter crying, I went to ask her why. My daughter told me that ‘the mean lady took her candy away’. I looked at my aunt and asked, “Did you take candy away from my daughter?” She looked at me and said, “Yes. I did. She’s too little to eat candy.” “You don’t tell my kid that she is too little to eat candy. Her mom and I will decide whether or not she can eat candy, not you. Do you understand that?” Then I told my daughter to go to her mother and wait until I came back. I told her I was going to go buy her some candy just for her. I told my wife what had happened and then I left to go to the store to buy some candy just for my daughter. When I got back, I found out that Ron had not brought a present for Craig. Craig was feeling pretty upset. I told my wife that we could give Craig one of the extra mink blankets, we had out in the van. I asked her what she thought of the idea. She said that it was worth way more than $25. I said yes, but that it was used, and it was to make him feel better. Then she agreed. When we gave Craig the mink blanket, everybody else got jealous, but I couldn’t help that. I wasn’t the person who broke the rules. I was merely trying to ensure that everybody had a nice Christmas. As luck would have it, I would have to take care of myself later. In December 1981, my wife and my daughter and I drove through frigid temperatures and near blizzard conditions just to experience a sorry Secret Santa on Christmas in what was just another exercise in futility.
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