“Have I grown up?” my daughter asked me a couple of nights before Christmas … and her birthday. It was a serious question, asked in a serious voice. She sounded like she wanted to know if the end of the year was a good time to buy stocks, or if El Niño was going to make the oceans rise faster. We had been watching old Christmas morning videos. How odd to say “old.” Because there should be nothing old about them — she’s still just a kid. Yet, they were labeled strange years, long in the past: 2009, 2010, 2012 … And the kid in the video was nearly unrecognizable. In one, she was missing all of her front teeth. “Did you get in a bar fight?” I asked. “You look like a hockey player!” And her voice in some didn’t sound like the little girl sitting in front of the computer. “Yep, that was my little kid accent,” she said. “I’m not sure when that went away.”
The Christmas panic shopping guide
The little sign reached out and smacked me upside the head: “14 days to Christmas,” it proclaimed. Unwritten and invisible to all but me were these words: “This jerkface hasn’t started Christmas shopping yet. He’s doomed!” Wow, Christmas countdowns have gotten mean this year. But it was right. Two weeks out and I was desperate. In trouble. Possibly ruined. How had this happened? How could this be? Christmas is supposed to be the season of giving. I had turned it into the season of goofing off. And at that moment, the Christmas Shopping Panic set in.
The early morning rat catch
It’s no way to begin a Saturday, not when you’re sipping from a hot mug of Cuban coffee, reading a newspaper and contemplating an early morning run before the sun peeks out. A phone rings. It’s 6 a.m. And it’s my mother. I’ve learned there are two reasons behind calls at this hour: emergencies or absurdities. As I rushed to the phone and answered it, I wondered which way this one would go. “Brian! You have to come over … RIGHT NOW!” said the exasperated voice on the other end of the line. Long pause. Deep inhale, then … “Missy Daisy just brought a rat in the house … and she let it LOOSE!”
Wishing for cold
Now I will say what needs to be said, fellow Floridians. It will bring scorn down upon us. Ridicule. Condemnation. The rest of the country will curse us for even thinking it. But it must be said: It’s too beautiful outside and I wish it would stop. All this warm, pleasant, blue-sky weather is getting a little old. A little tiring. A little drab. It doesn’t feel like Christmas. I wish it was cooler. I wish it felt like winter. I wish I could wear a sweater. Or galoshes. Or some ear muffs. I wish winter wasn’t so darn incredible here!
A year of thanksgiving
“It puts it all in perspective doesn’t it.” A friend told me this as we swapped stories about loved ones dealing with health issues. How it can be tough and overwhelming. Draining. How you can lose sight of how good you’ve had it. How you’re never quite cognizant of all you should be thankful for. At least not all year. Usually on a day dressed with turkey and family gathered around, like the one we just had. But why not ALL year? That’s the lesson I’ve learned from helping my mother through her medial problems the past several months — take nothing for granted. Appreciate simple moments. Don’t let the little stuff eat at you. Always give thanks for what you have. Put it all in perspective. So, three days after our “official” Thanksgiving, it’s not too late to take stock and give a little more thanks. Call it is a Thanksgiving Day resolution to do it all year.
The Thanksgiving survival checklist
It is a place only the bravest dare enter. Littered with hidden dangers, psychological pitfalls, and pressures that will turn coal into diamonds, then back into coal. Many strong men and women have never returned, lost their minds, lost everything. It is not for the faint of heart. The weak. The inexperienced. It is … hosting Thanksgiving. And it is upon us. I will have 10 family members, a toddler and an undetermined quantity of dogs/critters this holiday. Am I ready? There is no “ready.” It’s more like what astronauts experience when blasting into space: buckle up, hold on and try not to wet your pants. So with that, I bring you a Thanksgiving survival checklist that may help you prepare for your own hosting: • Study great battles from history. Understand strategy and what led to conflict. Know that the best laid plans never survive the first argument over a drumstick. Realize that diplomacy is for fools on Thanksgiving. Family members come wound-up and ready to tangle on all kinds of subjects. Make sure the butter knives are always duller than the conversation. • Know when to lie. It’s called Thanksgiving, not Honesty-giving. Like when your aunt wants to know if you would like to see her 3,200 pictures from a recent trip to Duluth. At moments like these, it is OK to offer little white lies like: “Oh my gosh! I would love to, but I hear the stuffing percolating.”
The math homework hoodwink
My wife offered me a compromise: “I will run out to get the pizza if you look over the math homework.” “DEAL!” I shouted. I can be a man of action. When I see an opportunity — a GOOD opportunity — I jump at it. And this seemed like one of those. I will wrestle a komodo dragon to get out of a pizza run. Math homework? That’s a no-brainer, even for a no-brainer like me. The school binder was laid out on the dining room table. The page of “math” sat atop it. Shoot, I didn’t even need to go looking. “A sucker born every minute,” I thought to myself, proud of my coup. Wondering if I had magical powers that brought good luck upon me. “I always said I was special!” Until I took a look down at the page … DIVISION!
The Halloween flight
This is not what you want to hear on the news the night before you fly out of Austin, Texas, so you can get home in time to take your kid trick or treating: “Today’s storm was one of the worst we’ve seen in Texas … houses flooded … roads washed out … people climbing trees to escape the floodwaters … 14 inches of rain fell at the airport … air traffic control tower damaged … check your flights … expect delays … It’s Halloween. You’re DOOMED!!! MUHAHAHA!” Commence panic attack. I was at a conference in Austin and had lined up a flight early enough on Halloween to get back for the candy run. My daughter turns 10 this Christmas and you never know how many Halloweens you have left. So I had to be there. This meant getting out of the hotel by 5:45 a.m. Getting through security quick. Avoiding delays. Praying for good weather. Making a connecting flight in Houston. Flying like we had a mad dog on our tail. And not climbing a tree to escape floodwaters.
And the world looked different
“Everything looks so different,” my mother said as we drove down King Street. She had her face pressed up to the window like she had never seen St. Augustine before. Like this was her first time driving through town. If I had put the window down, I imagine she would have stuck her head out like a dog. “Um, it’s all the same,” I said. “You haven’t been in there that long.” “Well, it looks different,” she said, “and it has been ‘that long.’” She was right. I keep a list of dates on my phone. It chronicles my mother’s “Fall of Falls.” From the first one, when she broke a hip, to another one during recovery when she fractured her knee. It lists the surgeries. The discharges. And now the trip home, carefully executed with a car full of wheelchairs, walkers and other home healthcare doo-hickies.
Pumpkin carving time
It’s pumpkin carving time — by far one of the most violent, dangerous and disgusting traditions a family will ever undertake. One of the only occasions you will ever hear sweet little children utter phrases like, “OK, dad, now stab it in the face and then rip some more guts out!” I look over at my little daughter and remind myself to sleep with one eye open. Normally I just worry about the large, usually dull knife that I hold in my slippery hand while trying to carve into a slippery pumpkin. I don’t want to be the dad wheeled into the ER with paramedics screaming, “Got another carver with a blade to the femur.” In the past, pumpkins have been simple, rudimentary affairs — big, gaping mouths. A tooth or two. Large, odd-shaped eyes. Maybe a nose — and it’s a big maybe. Young kids don’t hold parents to high expectations when it comes to pumpkin carving. They’re impressed when you can just stomach pulling out pumpkin guts … or don’t stab yourself in the mid-section. But this 9-year-old? I’m not so sure this year. I think I’m going to have to step up my game.