It's dawned on me that it's awkward to keep saying things like, "my wife" or "my oldest son," and without wanting to use real names, in true sitcom spirit, I've decided to come up with character names for them. So, I'll call my wife Amy, my 8-year-old son Marty and my 5-year-old son Casey. Anyone else that I need to add in, I'll add names for as I go along.
Let's give it a shot.
On Christmas Eve, Marty decided that he wanted to act out Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." He cast Casey as Scrooge, Amy as the Ghost of Christmas Past, himself as the Ghost of Christmas Present and me as the Ghost of Christmas Future because, and I quote, "you're scary."
He also gave himself another part, that of Scrooge's old partner. However, he told me that he had decided that he didn't like the name "Jacob" and was changing it. The character would now be Bob Marley instead.
Let's just say that the classic story takes an unexpected twist when the ghost foretelling the visits is a reggae legend. Luckily, the ganga smoke that marked his appearance was fake...although I was taken by the fact that he was weighted down by the dreadlocks he had forged in life.
In Marty's version, Scrooge was being punished for taking a Christmas vacation to Hawaii without taking the rest of his family. When I found out the plot, the Ghost of Christmas past got even scarier...because if anyone in my family is shuttling off to the islands for the holidays, it's me.
The reason for the little production stemmed from a conversation the boys had earlier in the week when Marty felt that Casey was being too materialistic and was only concerned about how many toys he was going to get.
"Christmas is not about the toys," Marty said. "It's about love and compassion and being with people that you love."
"I really just want the toys," Casey replied.
Marty had hoped that putting Casey through the Scrooge treatment would cause him to learn the true meaning of Christmas. Didn't work...right afterwards Casey went back to trying to figure out if any of the boxes under the tree looked like they contained a DSi.
Meanwhile, my staff bought me a black Santa hat inscribed with "Bah Humbug." Apparently that little announcement about there being no Christmas presents this year, not even a lousy $5 gift card to Starbucks didn't really go over that well.
Casey got one of those PaperJamz things...the fake guitars that play music or you can pretend to play or whatever. One of the songs on the one he got was the old song by The Vapors, "Turning Japanese." When the song first started, I got a little concerned that I was going to have to explain the lyrics "No sex, No drugs, No wine, No women" to a 5-year-old, but it skipped that part. Oddly, it also skipped the most memorable guitar part of the song...but why would you include that on a toy guitar. It also plays a Fall Out Boy song, because you can't help but notice the guitar work in their music.
At the family gift exchange, I got mocked over a beard that I've allowed to grow on my face. Normally, I look like Mr. Clean...shaved head, clean shaven, all of that. But, I kept cutting a spot on my face so I let the hair and whiskers grow so that I kind of look like a chia pet...a chia pet with a lot of gray hair that normally isn't noticable when I have no hair. During the handing out of the presents, my 17-year-old niece put a gift for my dad in front of me and then looked up and said, "Oh...you're not grandpa." The family laughed and laughed...including Marty, so apparently the Christmas spirit thing doesn't extend to me.
That's ok...my gift at that exchange was a gift certificate to Barnes & Noble. I'll be using it for a book on getting even.
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