Photo taken December 1986. The photographers wanted to wait for me to stop crying, my mom shouted, “It’s alright, take it, take it - it’ll be funny.”
December 1989-1996. On Christmas Eves, I slept in my sister’s spare twin bed. Although I claimed not to believe in Santa, I was haunted by the image of his pulling my toes when filling my stocking.
December 1990. My dad, finding it amusing that I was so vehement in explaining the mythology of Santa, employed his perpetually besotted coworker, last name Spreadberry, to call the house. Everyone was atypically gathered in the family room post-dinner when the phone rang. My dad was grinning before he even answered, and with his expressive eyebrows gave a look of shocked awe as he handed the phone to me. This was the first time I ever received a phone call. When I picked it up, providing a hesitant, “Hello?” the voice on the end of the line let out a deep laugh announcing himself as Santa. I immediately chucked the phone across the room screaming, “You’re not real!” This story is told about three times every holiday.
December 1991-present. In the middle of our dinner table sit candles designed to be the Three Wise Men. They are all goofy with age, their eyeballs having melted off and replaced with poorly positioned beads. After dinner, when my mother briefly leaves to get the coffee, my brother and I compete to see who can run their fingers through the flames the slowest. My mom hates it. Says we’ll flick wax all over the table and ruin it.
December 1998. The Christmas tree fell on me and my mom started crying about the broken ornaments and forgot to ask if I was alright.
December 1998 also. My dad did some work for a limo company that offered to give us a classy ride to the movie theater on Christmas Eve. I’ve told this story before, so in short, when asked who I would want to invite as my +1 to a theoretical dinner of my family and famous people, I wanted to impress them with my smarts and knowledge. So I said Caligula.
