Category: humor

Flying reindeer can be scary

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When our oldest was 4 and starting to wonder whether Santa was really real, we spent Christmas with my in-laws in Billings, Montana.

What’s neat about Christmas in Billings is that, on Christmas Eve, Santa’s sleigh buzzes Billings and other nearby towns around suppertime.

It’s a tradition that started in 1981 when a local aviator named Gerhart Blain hitched a light display in the shape of a sleigh and reindeer beneath a blacked-out helicopter.  Blain passed away a couple years ago, leaving his sons in charge.

So, the year we went to Montana for Christmas, Grandma and Grandpa told Thing 1 that if she went outside after supper and looked toward the rimrocks, she might see Santa.

She didn’t believe them, of course, but then we saw it, a speck of light flying above the rimrocks toward the house. Within a few seconds, we could make out Santa, his sleigh and a couple of reindeer, all outlined in lights.

I’ll never forget the look on Thing 1’s face:

Panic. Complete and utter panic.

“I’m not in bed!” she wailed, bursing into tears and trying to hide behind Sweetie. “He won’t stop!”

It’s OK, we told her. Santa’s just getting started. He won’t stop at Grandma and Grandpa’s house for a few hours. You’ve got plenty of time!

“No!” she screamed. “He won’t stop! I’m not in bed!”

We finally calmed her down and put her to bed, and the next morning, she saw that we were right. Santa came, and he was very generous.

I wish we’d taped Santa’s sleigh and Thing 1’s reaction, but we didn’t. I looked around online, though, and finally found a clip of the helicopter-powered sleigh over Laurel, Montana, last Christmas.

Why it’s a bad idea to peek at your presents

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Thing 1 (the 10-year-old) was wrapping presents last night, and Thing 2 (the 4-year-old) kept trying to peek into the room to see what she’d gotten him.

“You better not do that,” I heard Thing 1 say. “Don’t you remember what happened to Uncle Joe?”

Clockwise from the back: Papaw, Mamaw, Joe and my dad.

Uncle Joe is Dad’s brother. Now, I don’t know whether Uncle Joe tells my cousins this story or whether he even remembers it (or remembers it the same way my dad does), but I grew up hearing about what happened to Uncle Joe, and I’ve told the story to my kids.

The story goes that when they were teenagers, Dad got Joe a watch for Christmas.

Dad will do anything he can to keep you from guessing what you’re getting for Christmas. He’ll take small presents and put them in big boxes — and throw something like a pencil in the box so it’ll rattle around and keep you guessing.

So, a couple days after Dad put Joe’s watch under the tree, he noticed that it been tampered with. Someone had obviously unwrapped it — and done a bad job of wrapping it back. Dad suspected Joe, so he decided to teach Joe a lesson.

Dad returned the watch, bought Joe some socks and underwear, put them in the watch box, wrapped it with the same paper and put it back under the tree.

When Joe unwrapped Dad’s present on Christmas morning, in front of their parents, Joe knew he’d been busted — and, as far as I know, he never got that watch.

One time, I asked Dad, “How do you know it was Joe who unwrapped the present?”

“I just do,” he said.

“Did he ever say anything to you about it?”

“No.”

“How do you know Mamaw or Papaw didn’t open it to make sure you weren’t spending too much or something?” I asked.

“Joe did it,” Dad said.

So there you go. “The Story of Uncle Joe and the Watch,” as we’ve come to call it, was a good lesson for me growing up, and it’s been a good lesson for Things 1 and 2.

They’ll shake their presents and press the paper against the box to see if they can see through it, but they know what could happen if they go so far as to peek — although, sometimes, we still need to remind them.

I’ve got a bad feeling about this

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A few years, Thing 1, our 10-year-old began asking me about Star Wars. She didn’t know much about it except what she’d heard at school, and what she heard at school was mostly about the prequels.

Sweetie and I … OK, Sweetie doesn’t really care.

I — pretty much by myself — have worked hard to make sure our children grow up in a Jar Jar-free home.

When our daughter just a baby, I decided that, when the time was right, I’d let her watch the original Star Wars, then The Empire Strikes Back and finally Return of the Jedi, and then, and only then, would I expose her to The Phantom Menace and the other prequels, because, no matter what George Lucas says, that’s the natural order of things.

I worried sometimes that I’d waited too late to talk to her about Star Wars, so I was relieved when we were watching Empire — this was a couple years ago — and Vader says, “Luke, I am your father,” Thing 1 sat bolt upright and said, “Whoa!”

Despite everything she’d heard on the playground, despite the scene in Toy Story 2 where Zurg tells Buzz Lightyear that he’s Buzz’s father, she didn’t know. The moment still surprised her.

I had done my job.

Our youngest, Thing 2, the 4-year-old, has begun asking questions about Star Wars.

I think he’s still too young to watch the movies,I think they might be too scary, but I don’t want him to hear about this stuff on the playground. I want him to hear it from me. I don’t want him to grow up thinking Jar Jar Binks is funny or that Greedo shot first. I want him to know the truth.

I think that’s why this new public service announcement hit so close to home: