Christmas Memories…the year Christmas almost wasn’t

As I mentioned, I have a lot of nosing around stories… here’s another one for you.

This one took place when I was in the 7th grade, I believe. I could be wrong. I know that we were living in Virginia the first time, so that was sometime between 5th and 7th grade…

My parents went to work in the morning before it was time for my brother and I to catch the bus. Mom would call and make sure that we were up. Missing the bus was not a good thing. For whatever reason, she didn’t find it a convenience to drive 30 minutes from her work to home only to pick us up and drive another 45 minutes to school. We didn’t follow all of the rules, but we did make sure that no matter what, we were going to catch the bus.

This particular morning we were up and around with time to spare. I was in my mom’s sewing room, and I’m not sure why I was in there, but I found the Christmas presents. All of them. (I really don’t think that I was looking for them, but I might have been. I can’t remember.)

Regardless, I found them. Being the good sister that I am, I immediately called my brother in the room and showed him the closet filled with all the Christmas goodies. While he was later mad at me to bring him in on this discovery, he showed no anger at that moment as he and I scoured through the boxes with our names on them. We had gotten to them before Mom had wrapped them… jackpot!

I was so excited as in that box was my Debbie Gibson’s Electric Youth perfume.

(Let’s just put the fact that I actually WANTED Electric Youth aside and finish the story, shall we? Thank you.)

I spritzed a little bit on myself, feeling like a million bucks. I was sure that this perfume would catapult me into the cool kids’ group. When I put it on, I felt as beautiful as Debbie Gibson, and I just stared at the tall rectangular bottle and remember how cool I thought the hot pink spiral was that encased the little hose thing within the bottle of perfume. I started humming Electric Youth…

It’s easy to see why I was so fascinated with this perfume, isn’t it? hee hee Anyway, not only was the smelly stuff in the box-o-gifts with my name on it, there were some Teen Beat and Bop Magazines, which I took out and took to school with me to read. (Come on, I couldn’t stand to wait another few weeks so that I could drool over Kirk Cameron, NKOTB, and all the other boys that were contained within.) And honestly, I don’t know what else I found while I was in there. Those two things, perfume and magazines is all I remember.

My brother also was digging through his stash and we saw Dad’s big gift. We were excited to see it there. We knew he would love it. What was it? Hold on… I’m getting there.

We were so engrossed in digging and looking at what we weren’t supposed to that when I looked at the clock I realized that we were going to miss the bus. We had a super long driveway that I knew we were going to have to run down and pray that Mrs. Orange would wait for us. (She wasn’t a waiter. She was mean.) We flew out of the house, down the driveway, and caught the bus. Once settled in for the 45 minute ride, I pulled out my magazines careful not to rip or bend the pages. I knew that this magazine had to make it back in the box before Mom got home from work and she couldn’t notice that me and all my friends scoured the pages on the way to school.

That afternoon, we arrived home from school and I deposited the magazines back in the box, exactly where I had found them, quickly washed my neck and wrists to ensure that there were no traces of Electric Youthfulness on my body and commenced with my homework. My brother and I swore each other to secrecy about what we had found that morning.

Well……

When my mom came home, my brother promptly told her that he’d lost his lunch money and needed another $5. She got on him about being responsible for his lunch money and blah blah blah… it was really odd for my brother to lose money though. He was always, and continues to be, very good with money. He knows what he has and can account for all of it. (This is one trait that I did not pick up from my father… I definitely got the spending gene from my mother.)

We continued throughout the evening with dinner, and homework, and chores and headed to bed. I remember going to sleep thinking that I didn’t need to worry about being disappointed Christmas morning, but I couldn’t wait to get my hands on that perfume and proudly display it on my dresser. I had already determined that I would clean my dresser so that I could make a home for it… it would go right next to my Sunflowers. (I still to this day don’t have great taste in the smelly stuff…)

I had also determined that in the morning, I would sneak into that closet and douse myself in Electric Youth again. A few little sprays wouldn’t hurt and we were close enough to Christmas that mom wouldn’t notice that the liquid level of the perfume was depleting. I secretly hoped that she wouldn’t wrap presents until Christmas Eve… or at least until school let out.

My plans were thwarted.

We overslept and I wasn’t able to go to school smelling electrified. There was just no time and when mom got home from work the next day she came up to my brother and said, “I found your lunch money.”

His face lit up, he was excited as the money was found! “Where was it?” he asked. He likes to know the mistakes that he made to ensure that he doesn’t do it again.

“In the closet, in my sewing room…” she was mad. She was near tears.

There’s no way this is going to be good. Secretly, I hoped that my brother would have mercy on me and not rat me out. After all, I was the one who got him involved in the snooping, but he was the idiot that didn’t know how to cover his tracks.

“Heather found them and made me look!” he screamed.

Guess that he wasn’t feeling merciful that day.

My mother looked like she was going to cry. She started spouting off about how mad she was and how disappointed she was. We just sat there and took it.

And then she said, “I am seriously considering taking it all back and canceling Christmas.”

That’s when I knew we were really in trouble.

My mother was mad at me. My brother was mad at me. I was mad at myself. I had caused hurt to my mother.

Christmas morning arrived and it wasn’t the same but we did have presents. My mom wasn’t as excited. I didn’t understand then about the magic in watching your children open their presents. Since we knew what we were getting, we had to act surprised, but my mom knew that we were acting.

She cried a few times Christmas morning. It wasn’t our best Christmas to say the least.

But she still had the surprise for my dad. The last present standing was a huge box and it had Dad’s name on it.

Dad puts on a show for mom, and for us, where he picks up the boxes and shakes them and guesses what’s inside. He prolongs it because he knows it makes my mom happy to see the excitement. He’s a good man like that. Truth be told, Dad doesn’t really get into gift getting or opening presents. Or if he does, he doesn’t let on.

As Dad was shaking, my brother and I became more and more excited for him. We knew what was inside and we knew that’s what he really wanted. All of a sudden my brother shouted, “open it Dad! You’ll love it! It’s a ShopVac!”

I thought my mother was going to die.

I thought I was going to die.

I was sure that my brother was going to die.

Between my brother and I, we had single-handedly ruined Christmas for my mother.

Today, the ShopVac story is recounted every Christmas morning. One of us (meaning, my mother or I) will shout that phrase when Dad is shaking a present trying to determine what’s inside. We all laugh.

That mom of mine doesn’t hold it against us, although she is quick to tell us how angry she was that year.

My brother on the other hand doesn’t find it the least bit funny.

But we do… and this year, I will again bring it up when we open presents with the family. And we’ll all laugh.

I do believe that it was the last year that I snooped.

Until next time..

Heather