Christmas Eve

My mother's family live in a town named Gamaliel, in Kentucky. It's an hour north of Nashville. There may be six hundred people there. I spend every Christmas in Gamaliel.

We stay at my grandparents farm, where there is one and a half bathrooms and bedding space for twenty people. Okay, that's an exaggeration. Last night, Christmas Eve, fourteen people slept here. I was on one of two couches, but I was also in the room where Santa places the presents, so I didn't go to bed until late.

When I was younger, and my grandparents lived in a different house, on Christmas Eve all the grandchildren would go to bed maybe around ten. Our parents, acting as Santa Claus, would arrange presents in specific places for each child. These presents most often weren't wrapped; it was a bike or a dollhouse or a Dreamcast. On Christmas morning, my uncle John, who didn't have kids at the time, would hold us back from the presents, and ask which one of us asked for a two by four, or a porcupine, or whatever an eight-year-old would never want. Then we would rush into the living room and rip open the copy of Sim City 2000 and accidentally knock a light over, burning a hole in my favorite chair. That didn't happen every Christmas, just on a special occassion.

Now, most of the grandchildren are grown up. Out of the four separate families that come to Ma Sue and Pa Will's farm, only one still has kids that believe in Santa, and need their presents laid out in this traditional manner. Therefore, what was once a celebrated activity, when the children went to sleep and the adults had time by themselves, where they probably watched R-rated movies, rented cars and spoke about how stupid kids were for believing in Santa, has now become a lonely night.

This was supposed to change this year, because my sister had a baby. As I've stated before, I hate babies. But this is an entirely different matter. Anyway, she was supposed to be a new generation practicing this ritual - staying up late and laying out presents in imitation of Santa. However, at eight or eight thirty, while I was watching Broken Arrow on my grandparents' all access movie channel pass, she asked me to do this for her. She was tired. She didn't want to stay up. I said no.

She went to bed anyway, and so I had to stay up with my aunt and uncle, Holly and Mark, to lay out presents in a dark and whisperless room where there was no joy. For Christmas, my sister bought her daughter a five sided cube covered with physical, baby thinking puzzles that looked like the intestines of a monster who only eats abacuses. It required assembly. I hate babies.

The worst part was that I didn't get credit. Her one year old, who is named Zuzu (part of the reason I hate babies) thought Santa did it. So I waited until after lunch, when Zuzu was trapped in her high chair. I grabbed her by both arms and told her the truth: Santa is dead. She drooled on my hand, so I spit banana in her face. Two can play at that game.

Everyone Loves A Nerf War

Traditionally, my fraternity's semi-formal event, Reindeer Rendezvous, is a movie night. Small groups go out to eat, then gather at some warm and comfortable location and watch a movie. Last year it was A Muppet Christmas Carol. That was my pick. I was told later that the movie was the reason we were changing the format. Apparently everyone except for me has terrible tastes in movies.

This year, Nathan Allen, an older member who looks Irish, taught the fraternity and our dates to waltz. It was almost violent. When you're spinning in a circle, oscillating up and down like a parabola, you can only see where you're going half the time. That means the other half the time you're traveling backwards, flying blind with no idea about what's at your six. I hit a lot of people with my elbows; not all of them were guys. I blamed it on my date.

Another new feature of this year's Reindeer Rendezvous was presents; instead of making shirts to commemorate the event, we asked all the members to use the money which would have gone to shirts to buy presents for children. That was both a good and bad idea.

Did you know that a nameless, No-Ad company packages two revolver type dart guns for only ten dollars? It's an amazing deal. This may just be a testament to how overboard Wal-Mart has gone with their Roll-Back campaign - I mean, we get it; you're a cheap store - but this was a deal I couldn't pass up. And since I was supposed to buy a present for a girl (no brainer: EasyBake Oven, 18 dollars ROLLED BACK from 25), I bought them for myself.

Last year my family had to spend Christmas with my sister and her husband on account of her pregnant belly. Don't even get me started on how much I hate babies. That's entirely too many words for this segment. But during the gift exchange on Christmas Eve, my sister's mother-in-law gave the same shaped present to my dad, my brother, my brother-in-law, Cory, and me. We opened them at the same time. It was a solid, fifteen dollar Nert blaster with a revolving barrel. Cool, but cool when I was eight, you know. I didn't really know how to react, since I didn't know the gift giver that well. Maybe she thought I was still in junior high. I thanked her and watched my sister unwrap her present (a paint set), until I saw Cory opening the packing with a knife. I didn't quite understand what he was doing until my brother got his gun entirely free of the package and flipped his recliner over to use as cover. By then, it was too late for Christmas Eve. The night devolved into a war that lasted to a point that surprised everyone. My dad shot my brother in the eye, point blank; he doesn't even like it when we play Halo.

The women had to go into the kitchen to drink tea and fluff my sister's pillows or something. I tried to shoot her in the stomach, but it didn't do anything. The baby still came out normal.

When my date and I got to the Rendezvous venue last night, I found that many other members bought the same two gun package. There was some time set aside to wrap the EasyBake Oven, but I told my date to handle it - there was something I had to do. Then I shot her with a dart.

These guns were quite cheaply made, and most of the darts were misfires, but the amount of guns present added up to hundreds, literally hundreds of foam darts stuck in girls' hair. A few pledges bought more expensive, on brand guns that, in the long run, won out over the Air Splitters I dual wielded. One buck had a Nerf sword. Did you know they made Nerf swords? My date does, because I hit her with it.

This was my last fraternity event as an executive officer. My tenure is finished at semester. Seeing a vision of my dad in transparent blue telling me to finish strong, I stayed behind to help pick up darts. I sadly threw away maybe ten Air Splitters that were abandoned. However, I found a Nerf shotgun that was bought as a present and laid aside, forgotten and unwrapped. It's now beside my bed, loaded and cocked.