My father, Larry, saw his last Christmas in 2001. At his funeral, I related the following tale as part a eulogy.
My dad had a unique sense of humor.
One Christmas morning, when I was six or seven, I jumped out of bed at some ungodly hour and crept down the stairs to begin the day's festivities.
Now, it's important to note here that, in my house, Santa did not wrap his presents; he was a busy man, of course, and had no time to wrap all those toys and presents for every kid in the world, so he just left them by the tree, unwrapped. This was how I was able to distinguish the "mom and dad" presents from the "Santa" presents. In recent years, I've also come to appreciate the time and expense saved by my parents in not wrapping their "Santa" gifts
Anyway, as I descended the stairs, I took my first look at the gifts by the tree------and saw no unwrapped presents! Oh no! I ran to the tree and began frantically searching......not an unwrapped gift to be found anywhere.....they were all wrapped and tagged "from mommy and daddy". I checked my stocking..........OH NO!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was full of coal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!! I ran upstairs to my parent's room, crying "Mommy!!! Santa Claus didn't leave me any presents!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!! I got coal!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
To this day, I can still see my mom's face. Resigned and slightly annoyed, she turned to my dad, his face buried in the pillow, quaking with suppressed laughter, clicked her tongue and said "What did you do now?"
As it turned out, my dad "went to the kitchen for a glass of water", and on his way, ran into Santa. Together, they decided to play "a little joke" on me. He'd put all my presents in the living room closet. Har har har.
My wife says that this explains a lot as to my mental state today.
To make matters worse, the Christmas before he died, when we were reminiscing about Chrismases past, he had no recollection of that little gag. He was a great one for his jokes, even though they were often annoying.
Merry Christmas to all on JU, and Happy New Year.............
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