December 23, 2016

Kids!  You gotta love them.  Even when they’re old and balding (Or wait!  Maybe that’s me!) they can get away with a lot due to the Doting Parent Syndrome.  I’m not naming names here, though I do have just one kid who fits the above description.

This morning – take note, it’s the 21^st of February – I received this email message from the kid in question:  “The packages are all wrapped up and ready to send.  Wasn’t that quick?”  If I’d had any thoughts about what had happened to those promised Christmas presents, they evaporated in a flurry of laughter.  “Quick” indeed!

December 24, 2016

The back-story started thirty years or so ago when the kid in question flew up from California at Christmas with a very special gift for my folks – a new set of stainless dinnerware, service for twelve.  He had carefully wrapped each individual place setting separately – twelve gift- wrapped packages plus several serving pieces, also carefully packaged and wrapped. All were in a special carry-on suitcase.

This was before 9/11, mind you, but even so, the airport security made him unwrap every single package right down to the tissue paper around each knife, fork and spoon.  That was the last time this particular kid ever flew up at Christmas.  He now drives up from L.A. bringing wrapping paper and ribbon and naked gifts in his trunk.  He spends his time right up until the zero hour wrapping and taping and tying and gets the gifts under the tree just in the nick (Saint Nick?) of time.

By Noel Thomas

This last Christmas was no exception but the zero hour came a day early when we all rushed after the ambulance carrying Nyel to Good Samaritan Hospital in Portland on December 24^th.  Those packages had yet to be wrapped and, as it turned out, returned to L.A. in that same car with the California plates.

I had about given up on them and was just ready to express Parental Annoyance when that email came.  Yay!!!

Of course, I haven’t received the packages yet…