Christmas Lists

“Santa Claus cannot bring you every toy you want.  There are limits,” said my Mother.

A very practical woman, my mother. At the end of October 1961 when I was in the second Grade, she gave me the new Sears Wish Book and a budget of $100 and told me to make up a wish list for Santa.  I wore that Catalog to pieces and filled out innumerable pages of loose leaf note book paper with items, page numbers, and sums.  Christmas reduced to simple arithmetic.

She gave the same project to my sister.  I suspect Mom got this idea from some Woman’s Magazine.  That’s something women used to use for enlightenment before Oprah.

As she looked over my list, Mom told me more dreaded truth direct from the North Pole.  “You know, Santa does not have a bottomless supply of toys.  Sometimes he makes substitutions.”

Back I went to the books.  Now I PRIORITIZED my list and also put in alternatives. I got my list in quick, too.  If Santa was ordering gifts for every Kid in the World from the Sears Catalog, then I wanted to be there before the supply of World War II Invasion of Normandy army man sets were gone. You know, the ones that had grey Germans with potato masher grenades and those distinctive bell-shaped helmets.  There were also extra pieces like pill boxes, plastic barbed wire, mines, artillery and booby traps. Knowing I was getting it did not lessen my excitement on Christmas morning.

The making of the Christmas lists is now a fall tradition in our family.  I still make up a wish list (now at Amazon, just search for my name — Hint Hint).

My wife was certain that we Guice’s were all complete emotional cripples when she first was initiated into the Making of the Lists.  Christmas was for racking your brain to come up with the perfect, thoughtful, gift. You demonstrated your love, and observational abilities, by being able to give a person what they wanted without having to do anything crass like asking.

Completely hopeless, that perfect, thoughtful gift stuff.  You can see the results on December 26th when people go to trade their gifts for something more in line with what they wanted. The perfect gift is like the perfectly pitched baseball game — something that happens only a few times each decade.

Here in the Guice family, we get what we want for Christmas. No disappointments. Well, almost no disappointments.  There are still co-workers, in-laws, and friends who don’t go to Amazon and look at my list (here’s a link to my wish list, just in case you missed it).  Here I go to all the trouble to thoughtfully pick out presents for them to give me and they thoughtlessly ignore it.

The result of this list mania is that I am completely stumped when I have to buy a gift for someone so clueless as to not have a fully prioritized, full color Christmas gift list posted on the Internet. (free shipping for gifts over $25).

The thoughtful part of my brain has atrophied. I am reduced to skulking around observing my prey and making discrete inquiries to their spouse.

Such is my problem today.  I have been roped into a “Secret Santa Can Suck It gift swap”.  Yes, that is the title.  The cabal of Internet humor writers are swapping gifts in the best way they know — by making something  funny. Specifically, post a picture of what you would have gotten this person had you the money, time, love, hate or care to give them a present.

This is further complicated by the fact that we only know each other by our pseudonyms. My lucky gift recipient has the handle Amy Oops.  You would think someone called Amy Oops would be a woman, but no such luck.  A search of Amy’s Blogger Profile shows that Amy is a man.  No one can see your Adam’s apple on the Internet.

Short of giving some Internet Sleuth $35 to track down Amy and give me his full address, arrest record, and credit history, I have to do it myself. Amy is pretty cagey.  He used one of those privacy services to hide his name in the listing of website address owners. His website says he was in the Navy.  Military guys are way too paranoid.  See, he locked his Facebook page, too.

Wait a minute, on BlogCatalog Amy is listed as a female.  So much for a gender specific gift. Maybe Amy is a hermaphrodite.  That would explain her/his humor.

Just for the heck of it, I searched the Amazon Wish List.  Amy Oops!  Yippee!  Wait a minute.  This Wish List isn’t the Amy I know.  The Amy I know would not have picked a Naked Brothers Band T-Shirt in Pink – Girl’s Large.  At least, I hope she didn’t.  I can’t see a grown woman wanting a Naked Brothers poster for her wall, either; however, that Hop Scotch Twister Game could be her, in a kinky sort of way.

No one’s paying me $35 to find out a lot about Amy and my cigar is running low.  Time to do something desperate — like read her blog. Bingo!  Amy, here is your gift:

Oh, sorry, you can’t tear off the gift wrapping on the Internet, can you?  Here we go:

It’s The Oxford English Dictionary!  Twenty Two Thousand pages, One Hundred Forty Five and a Half Pounds, Twenty volumes, and over a Quarter of a Million words are all yours. Or, at least, a picture of them. The real copy will set you back $831.84 plus $55.20 for shipping. This book is NOT available for Super Saver shipping.  How did I know you wanted this, Amy?  Easy.  I read your blog.  You CAN’T SPELL!  Here is an example:

Mr. Tombe form Sudan was left no choice but to take a goat as his wife after he was caught having sexual relations with it.

I don’t know about you, but this looks like it could have been written by a hermaphrodite.

Merry Christmas Amy Oops, and if you got my name I sure as heck hope you used my wishlist!!!

Addendum:

Just so ya’ll won’t think I am a total jerk, I should explain that Amy (if that’s her real name) is a graphics artist and her blog is of very funny pictures. She doesn’t need a dictionary because no one goes there to read.

Amy is the proud mother of three children. Which is another way of saying that I don’t allow silly things like facts to get in the way of a good joke.

Amy, giving you a wonderful picture would be like carrying Coals to Newcastle. So, instead, I have given you a gift(?) made of words.

And thanks to my proof reader Bee of Bee’s Musings who helpfully pointed out that I misspelled the word Oops. Oops!

Update: Here is the Secret Santa Sucks gift that I got. Memarie Lane did exactly like my wife: she observed me closely, thought about it, and then gave me a perfect gift. Believe me, I would have a lot of fun with it.

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Tagged as: Christmas