Santa Claus is Going from Town

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When I was growing up, the youngest of nine children, the days after Christmas was the time to show off. Each kid had his or her pile of gifts, each carefully orchestrated to best display what Santa brought. That meant that boxes with clothing in them were used simply to prop up your new favorite toy.

Things are different now. As much as she likes following both of our childhood Christmas traditions - the boy’s get both a reindeer gift for leaving out carrots (her tradition) and a gift for leaving out cookie’s for Santa (my tradition), the missus does not like clutter. Freshly unwrapped gifts are put away by Boxing Day. But now, thanks to the wonder that is the internets, I can show off my gifts forever.

1. Old Navy Painter’s Jacket. I hate getting clothes as a gift. The missus knows that whenever she attempts to appease my pickiness about clothes she’s risking disappointment. She also knows that if she didn’t replace my worn out clothes – like the Gap jacket I’ve been wearing for the last eighteen autumns – nobody would. I know she agonizes every time she goes clothes shopping for me, so I’m sure she was happy to see how much I liked this jacket. It’s going to be great to wear while making snowmen with the boys this winter.

2. The Wilco Book. The only item that came from my wish list, but that’s one more than I usually get. The main reason I wanted this is for the bonus CD of outtakes that came with it (I’m kind of a Wilco completist). From what I’ve heard of the CD so far it’s pretty out there, but the book is very cool. It’s half writings from the band members and half photo book from their photographer. The missus also picked up This Must be the Place, a book about the Talking Heads (a band who, like Wilco, were never afraid to experiment with their sound).

3. Jevon Kearse Eagles jersey. A jersey of a defensive lineman (and a guy nicknamed “the Freak”) is so much cooler than one of T.O. or McNabb. The missus lucked out here, because she tried to get those two jerseys first.

4. Alton Brown T-Shirt. This one was the missus most inventive gift. I never ever even thought of getting a shirt from my favorite TV chef, but she surprises me with this. Things like this show that she really does listen to me when I babble on and on.

5. Trivial Pursuit SNL Edition. This was from my goddaughter and I think I could probably talk my neighbors into getting together for this game (we do corny things like game nights). The only problem is that I really haven’t regularly watched Saturday Night Live since Phil Hartman left.

6. The Beer Lover’s Rating Guide and a six-pack of beer. From my godson. Isn’t that what the whole godparent thing is all about, getting beer from your religious ward? And he did his research (or more likely his mom did) because he got me a six of Lancaster Brewing Milk Stout, a favorite that’s not easy to track down.

7. A framed 8x10 of one of my photos. From the boys. I knew that the missus had been thinking of getting one of my pictures framed, but I never expected it to be an 8x10. I was floored by this gift. She let the seven-year-old pick which photo and he ended up selecting one I shot at the farmers market that I take the boys to every Saturday. That made it even more special.

So as you can see, I made out quite all right. Even without the gifts I would have know I have a wonderful family. Of course, they would have been even more wonderful if they could have come up with that $10,000 lawnmower.