The Joys of Christmas
Things were a little crazy this past December 25th... as I mentioned, we hosted the Rubino family at my house this year. This happens about every four or five years (since the responsibility for hosting rotates amongst my father and his brothers), and always presents a challenge for my family and our modest-sized home.
The day started particularly interesting as we had reason to believe that one of our neighbors had stolen our Sunday newspaper! At first we all thought that the paper just hadn't been delivered to us (as a Sunday paper was missing earlier in the month as well). That is, until we got an eye witness report from another neighbor (whom we trust greatly) who claimed to see the whole act unfold. Then, I checked our backyard and saw footprints leading through our yard and around our house... the newspaper-Grinch had struck! Who would steal a newspaper on Christmas?
And of course, after we got back from Church we discovered that I had made the front page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. This lead to a couple trips to the convenience store to grab up a few precious issues. (Why did my Christmas morning revolve around newspapers?)
That evening after the party had died down, the guests had left, and I helped to clean up a bit, I went over to one of my best friend's house for our yearly gift exchange. There are four of us, and normally groups of three chip in to buy the fourth something. So in effect only four gifts are actually given out, but they are normally pretty nice.
This year, I thought I had one-up on Nick, when me and my two other friends found him a Legends of the Hidden Temple team t-shirt. This wasn't just some Hot Topic special... we actually found a whole online store that sells nothing but the team shirts (Blue Barracuda, Purple Parrots, Silver Snakes, etc...) And we are all huge fans of Nick GAS and Hidden Temple; it just seemed too good to be true. That is, until we exchanged gifts. Nick, without any of us knowing, got each one of us a different team shirt! We were all shocked beyond belief that both of us would happen upon the same online vendor and order shirts for everyone, and not even get a double. So now, each of us can be on a different team and have competitions! (Okay, maybe we'll just play Smash Brothers or something...)
Some of the other highlight gifts this year include:
• "Monsignor Quixote" by Graham Greene, an out-of-print edition that I thought would be impossible for Santa to find. It ended up costing him .99 plus shipping on Amazon.
• Dilbert: Complete Animated Series, this will go right up there with my Critic cartoon DVDs as one of those weird, funny cartoons of the mid-90s.
• a "Kiss Me, I'm Republican" t-shirt
• "Condi vs Hillary" by Dick Morris
• "Persecution" by David Limbaugh (that's El Rushmo's brother)
• Venue Songs by They Might Be Giants (featuring a sweet song about Pittsburgh!)
• "To Kill a Mockingbird" special edition DVD
• The Warriors for PS2!
As for the mysterious gifts that I got my friends and family... they're another story altogether.
We got my father (brace yourself): a toaster than burns "FOX NEWS" into the side of your toast! Yeah, it was the ultimate gift for him, since he already owns a giant Fox News mug. And for a change, he was actually thrilled by the gift. Danny and I also spent a good amount of time putting together, and then ordering, an Apple iPhoto book for my mom. In case you have no idea what that means... you are missing out. These iPhoto books are probably the nicest personalized gifts you could give someone. Of course, she was all about it.
Buying presents for my friends was another adventure entirely.
Me and two of my buddies had decided to get Dom the beloved "Die Hard Trilogy" boxed set. This, apparently, was a pretty hot item this year... we don't understand why. But it was never really hard to get a hold of, so Nick and I picked it up one afternoon at the mall.
We were rather curious about the specific boxed set we had purchased. The box has three sides to it, and an opening that the three double-DVD cases stick out of. It struck as odd that two of the DVD cases had the same picture of Bruce Willis on it (the picture was from Die Hard 3). We just assumed it was a weird printing error, or an example of lazy graphic design. Nothing more than that.
Then, at around 1AM on December 22nd, Nick called me and left a message. For some reason, throughout the entire time we had the set in our possession, we never read the titles of the movies. THe boxed set had Die Hard 2 and then TWO Die Hard With A Vengeances! We couldn’t just give him a box set with two of the same movie… especially Die Hard With A Vengeance. Now, if it was two of the original Die Hards, or even if all three of them were the first Die Hard, then it would be a different story (and wouldn’t be that bad.) But when you leave the best film in the trilogy out of it, well then things have to be done.
So he and I went out on one of the busiest shopping days of the year and attempted to find another set. At first, we thought this would be difficult, as a FYE employee had informed us that it was a "hot item" this year. That didn't make much sense, since this boxed set was released years ago, and as far as I know there hasn't been a resurgence in Carl Winslow. Even if FYE didn't have a replacement I still wanted my money back. Our conversation with the sales clerk, when we got to the front of the check-out line, went like this:
Clerk: Was there a problem with this?
Nick: Yeah... there are two Die Hard With A Vengeances.
Clerk: Are you serious?
Me: Yes, look... two Die Hard 3's.
Clerk: Oh my God. I've never seen something like this before.
Nick: Me neither!
Clerk: I'm so sorry!
And so we went to Best Buy and bought a good set.
The Christmas season is far from over... since we usually celebrate it until Epiphany (which is when my brother realizes "hey, I should stop celebrating Christmas"). The best part about post-Christmas is that the stress is off. We can relax, enjoy the season, and play with our toys!
Posted by MikeRubino at December 27, 2005 12:01 AM | TrackBack