All I want for Christmas

I can assure you, it certainly is not my two front teeth.

Christmas is a funny time of year. If you let it, the obvious paradox between religious touchstone and commercial extravaganza can drive you mad with disgust. Instead, I choose to concentrate on more important matters; like what exactly is inside those packages under the tree….notably the ones with my name on them.

My wife and I have an understanding at Christmas. We don’t go overboard, and we don’t go into debt. It is also understood that I will break both of those rules while expecting her to abide by them. I love double standards. I am incredibly easy to buy for; all I really want is books or model trains to add to my collection. Amazingly, I rarely get either of those things. The books because I am known for opening one and spending the rest of the day reading it and ignoring everything else, and the trains because apparently nobody is confident enough to try and pick ones that I’ll like. I figure it’s pretty easy. If it has flanged wheels and a build date any time after 1970, it’s a pretty safe bet I’ll like it. Still, the problem remains.

My wife has a standing order for jewellery, which she has done pretty well with. Last year she got furniture instead – at her own request – but otherwise nary a year has come and gone without the glint of gold and/or diamonds. The obvious predictability aside, it simplifies my Christmas shopping greatly. One phone call to her mother (who works in a jewellery store) and I’m done! It does, however, complicate matters on another front.

Christmas should be all about the surprise. Unfortunately, my wife usually asks for something particular or even goes one step further and chooses her own present. While this has the advantage of ensuring that she’ll like her gift, it completely destroys the mischief and subversion that comes with trying to surprise her with something great and unexpected. In short, it wrecks my fun. Although my wife usually has a pretty good idea that she’s getting at least one piece of jewellery, she rarely knows which one. To try and keep her guessing, I am forced to take to deception each December to try and convince her that perhaps this will be the year the jewellery will give way to something else. In keeping with this theme, I try to diguise her presents and come up with new and inventive ways of changing their shape in order to conceal the true nature of the object within the gift. It makes me feel better, if only slightly, that at least surprise will factor some small part into her Christmas morning.

I suppose I would be somewhat amiss if I didn’t admit that I usually have an excellent idea what I’m getting as well. Although my wife is prone to the temptation to buy me clothes instead of toys, I generally have some input into my primary gift. This year, however, she has given me a taste of my own medicine. I have absolutely no idea what I’m getting. In her typical prepared manner, she has already finished her shopping and has everything wrapped and ready. I have seen, felt, and hefted the gifts in question, and for the first time in my adult life I am completely stumped. Either I didn’t get anything I asked for, or my wife has developed a wicked ability to disguise things- something that was never her strong suit before.

The reality of it is that I really don’t care. I would be happy if she threw a pair of socks at me and said Merry Christmas. I’ve been telling her that what I really want is a weekend alone with her without having to worry about the kids catching on fire, but that unfortunately is seemingly harder to come by than enriched plutonium. Still, I am intrigued. I want to know what is inside those damn packages, and my wife knows it too. She has been walking around the house with this smug little look on her face because she knows she’s got me. I have tried countering with a flirtatious “I know what you’re getting for Christmas”, but she won’t bite. She has completely turned the tables on me this year and it sucks.

I can’t wait for Christmas morning.

Just what the doctor ordered

I love Dr. Pepper. Just thought I should get that out of the way right up front.

It wasn’t always that way. In fact, my first encounter with the good doctor was in the United States when I was probably about twelve years old. We were on the way to Salt Lake City and stopped in Great Falls, Montana for some junk food. (as anyone knows, it’s not truly a road trip until there is junk food) In true American style, the junk food was cheap and plentiful. The supermarket where we stopped had chocolate bars three for a buck, and six-packs of pop for something like a buck fifty. Needless to say, we came out of that place loaded for bear. In addition to the dozen or so chocolate bars I had chosen, (remember, this is back in the late 80s before American candy was widely available in Canada, so this was a huge novelty for us) I had decided to take a chance on a 6-pack of Dr. Pepper; something I had never even heard of before but my father assured me tasted just like cherry Coke. Sounded pretty good to me.

Unfortunately, it tasted nothing like cherry Coke. In my opinion, the taste fell somewhere between cheap generic cola and Buckley’s mixture. In other words, it was one of the worst things I had ever tasted. I got about a third of the way through the first can and decided that I had made a serious error in judgment. I dumped the remnants of the can out the window, swiped a can of my brother’s cream soda to wash away the taste, and relegated the nasty-ass Dr. Pepper to the floor under the driver’s side seat of my parents’ station wagon. For all I know it may still be there, rusting away with that car in some forgotten junkyard.

It was years before I would try Dr. Pepper again. I remember seeing it when it again became popular in Canada and wondering why anyone would subject their taste buds to such a horrible concoction. I stuck to my grape Crush and shook my head whenever I saw someone buy a Dr. Pepper. Poor people didn’t know what they were getting themselves into.

Everything changed one day at the 7-11 near my high school as I was skipping seminary to go play pool with some friends. It was customary to stop for Super Subs and Jalapeno corn dogs on the way to my friend Ryan’s grandparents’ house, where the pool table was located. Usually I would wash it down with my customary crush or a slurpee; but this particular day, the stars were aligned for something drastic. I ate the Sub, played a quick round of Neo-Geo with my friend Tyler, and gulped down a corn dog before realizing that I was out of money. In the days before bank cards and Interac, once your cash was gone you were out of luck; and my cash was gone. Unfortunately, the jalapeno corn dogs had been unusually hot that day and my throat was begging me for a drink. I asked Tye to spot me a dollar for a slurpee, and he countered with an offer that at first glance seemed more cruel than offering ice cream to a freezing eskimo. He would lend me the dollar, but I couldn’t buy a slurpee with it. I had to buy a big gulp, and it had to be Dr. Pepper. Tyler was a confirmed Dr. Pepper addict, and I had taken great delight in pointing out how disgusting his favourite drink was on numerous occasions. For him, it was the perfect opportunity for revenge. I initially refused outright, but the persistent feeling of rawness creeping through my digestive tract urged me to reconsider. Finally I relented. Tye sprouted a mean-looking grin, then proceeded to pour me the Dr. Pepper.

As first I took only small sips, seriously concerned that I might vomit. To my surprise, however, it wasn’t as bad as I remembered it. By the time the cup was one quarter empty, I was drinking it freely and trying to pretend that I was really hating it lest Tye think he had gotten the upper hand. Halfway through it I was somewhat dismayed to admit that I actually kind of liked it, and by the time it was gone I was willing to try it again. Things worked out in my favour because Tye was so intent on getting everyone else converted to his favourite drink that all I had to do was say “Gee Tye, maybe that crap you drink isn’t so bad after all” and he would immediately offer to buy me one. Meanwhile I was secretly really starting to like the stuff, but it took Tye about a month to figure that out. By the end of the school year I was hooked, and I’ve never looked back.

The Dr. Pepper addiction followed me to university in Utah, then back home again. In a matter of months, I had eclipsed even Tye’s affection for the stuff, and drank it constantly. My mother was concerned that I was drinking too much of it, which was probably true. Just to prove to her that I didn’t have a problem, I stopped drinking it completely. Six months later, I started again. I just loved the taste of the stuff.

My mission was tough. Dr. Pepper was extremely rare in France, and extremely expensive when it could be found. Every time I located it, I would spend crazy amounts of money hoarding cans of it- to the tune of 15 Francs, or roughly $3.00 US per can. My return home was celebrated with a Dr. Pepper on the way home from the airport, and I have been drinking it ever since.

About a year ago, I was forced to make a choice. Working in a fairly sedentary job that demands long hours sitting in front of a computer, the sugar intake associated with drinking up to a litre of Dr. Pepper at work every day began to take a toll on my body. I had graduated from Big Gulps to 2-litre Double Gulps, and used to down between 3 and 6 of them in an average week. My once-impressive metabolism had finally met its match, and I began to gain weight. (yes, you’re probably reading this going “um, yeah“) Not a lot of weight, but enough that my mountain bike racer physique began to soften. As someone who had always been very physically fit, I didn’t like that. It was time for a change, and the Dr. had to go.

There was only one option: Diet Dr. Pepper. There was only one problem: it was DIET Dr. Pepper. I hate diet pop, and have been very vocal about this for many years. I hate the aspartame, and the nasty aftertaste, and the whole idea of diet pop. To me, diet pop was an oxymoron. If you didn’t want to drink pop and have all the crap that came with it, you should drink crystal light or something. Now I was flirting with crossing over to the dark side. I bought a bottle of DDP and sipped away at it for three days, unable to get used to the taste. A week later, I did it again. Finally, I realized that I had to take a stand. I went to Superstore and bought a 12-pack of Diet Dr. Pepper and put it in my fridge, forcing myself to either drink it or be consumed by guilt over the waste. Slowly, it began to disappear. I bought another 12-pack, and it disappeared as well. I began to notice the taste of the aspartame less and less, and to choose the diet version over the high-test whenever I had the option. Finally, at the end of the summer when I was on the road with the steam train, I was offered a can of regular Dr. Pepper. I could barely finish it. It tasted thick and syrupy, and sickly sweet; almost the way I remembered that first can tasting so many years ago. I had come full circle, and the conversion was complete.

I’m not even sure what it is about Dr. Pepper, diet or high-test, that I like so much. The key ingredient of the flavouring is apparently prune juice, but I’ve tried to drink prune juice before and lets just say it really doesn’t agree with me. (I’ll spare you the gory details) The Dr. Pepper, on the other hand, is still my favourite and most likely always will be. If you haven’t tried it lately, I suggest you do….but be careful. It may not be your last.

‘Tis the season

Christmas had always been my favourite holiday. I don’t know why, but something about it has always captured my imagination. Maybe it was the excitement of all the parties and family gatherings; maybe it was simply a cookies and chocolate-fuelled haze of excitement over having ten days off of school. Maybe it was something more. Something intangible and inexplicable that flavours the fourth week of December with a satisfaction and euphoria that no amount of candy can provide.

My family, as with most things, has always been heavy with tradition around Christmas time. Heavy on togetherness, heavy on celebration, and of course, heavy on food. The holidays brought with them an onslaught of dinners: Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, Boxing Day, New Years Eve, and New Years Day. Ham, turkey, scalloped potatoes, salads, and every type of pie known to man. Had I not been blessed with a metabolism bordering on thermonuclear, I’m sure I would have gained twenty pounds in those ten days.

Christmas represented a lot of things, but chief among them was family. All of the dinners were full extended family affairs, usually with my father’s side. It was customary for them to include about forty people, pushing the capacity of our 1200 square foot home. If there was one time in the year that we were assured of seeing our cousins, aunts, uncles, grandparents, and long-lost estranged relatives we had never met before, it was Christmas. Beyond that, we planned a lot of activities within our immediate family. Every year we would do advent strings of gingerbread men to count down the days from December 1st to December 24th. As the six of us sat around the dining room table armed with sprinkles, raisins, chocolate chips, and about five pounds of icing, it was understood that none of us would escape the room without icing in our hair and chocolate stains on our clothing. We baked and iced cookies together, and hand-dipped chocolates together. We drove around the city together looking at Christmas lights, and put together treat trays of baking for friends of our family.

Chief among the traditions was the stake nativity pageant. It started out being our ward only, and I remember the first year it ran. I played a shepherd boy, and was outfitted with a fake beard that was so difficult to remove at the end of the night that I think it took three layers of skin with it. My family tried to get involved every year, although in later years that became more difficult due to the growing number of people wanting to play a part. The one constant was my father. A trained light & sound technician, he handled the technical end of the pageant for nearly fifteen years straight. His thanks for spending every night of the week before Christmas huddled in a freezing cold, four foot-square wooden box perched atop a rickety tower of scaffolding was the assurance that he would not get home until at least ten pm on Christmas Eve, missing the huge dinner and most of the festivities. It never seemed to bother him. As a child it used to bother me somewhat, but as an adult it stands as one of the best examples of service I have seen; and an indicator of the kind of giving that Christmas seems to squeeze out of even the most resistant of us.

I am reluctant to admit that while I recognize the opportunity to use the holiday as a way to reach out and support others or to give to those who are in greater need than I am, it is still the selfish indulgences of spending time with my own family doing the little things that define our Christmas traditions that matter to me the most. I look forward to the family outing to see the nativity pageant on Christmas Eve. My family no longer plays a part in the production, but we go to see it every year. I can’t wait to see my childrens’ faces on Christmas morning as they try to contain the excitement of opening their presents; of which I’m sure there will be far too many. I know I will enjoy the late night discussions with my wife and parents as we sit around the living room by the light of the tree and discuss the ills and joys of the world over cookies and hot chocolate. It will be a time for catching up with friends I rarely see, enjoying a rare opportunity to spend some quality time with those that I do see regularly, and making the most of ten whole days with my family, away from work and the demands of everyday life. I can’t wait….