It's a football

I'm happy to say I survived the first round of Christmas this year. If you don't celebrate, that's okay with me. I hope its okay with you that I do. I once lived with someone who hated Christmas, and it was just depressing. This year, I'm doing it RIGHT! Tree with lights and ornaments, gifts for everyone I can think of, extra ornaments and strands of lights hung randomly around the house, red-with-snowflakes door mat... Like I said-- I'm CELEBRATING!

Two of my favorite Christmas Traditions actually come from the family of my housemate who hated Christmas. The first was their habit of rattling their gifts before opening them-- and then pronouncing with absolute certainty that "It's a football!" We're not just talking about conical rubbery gifts here-- we're talking about skinny rectangles and tiny jewelry boxes and big squishy baby gifts. You'd know perfectly well that the hard rectangle in somebody's hand was EXACTLY the size and shape of a DVD case... and you'd watch them lift it to their ear, shake it, and then look proudly around the room at everyone-- "It's a football!" My other favorite tradition has a rather hazy start some ten years ago. Someone's brother was working at a grocery outlet, and found a can -- an extra large and rather heavy can-- with the label peeled off. He wrapped it and gifted it to his uncle. "It's a football!"

The next year, that uncle gifted it back. A few years after that, someone ran over the still unopened can with a heavy vehicle to change its shape so that the recipient wouldn't KNOW they were getting that same can for Christmas until he opened it. The year I attended this zany family Christmas, and heard the history of the can (contents still unknown, by the way)... It was wrapped up INSIDE a larger gift of tightly packed crumpled newspapers, and with a random toilet seat tucked around the newspapers to make the whole package a really odd shape. The brother was quite pleased with himself. The uncle already had plans for next Christmas. I'm sorry to say I missed it. But I'm sure that somewhere, somehow, someone in that family is happily shaking a package with a crushed, dented, and unlabeled over-sized can inside-- "It's a football!"