Christmas Countdown

For some reason, The Station for Soft Rock 102.9 has decided that it is the appropriate time of year to play Christmas music, at least from 5:30-6:00 am and 6:30-7:00 pm (the times I'm going to and from work). I thought there was some kind of commercial rule that Christmas had to wait its turn until after Thanksgiving. Sure, Christmas decorations are put out right on November 1st, as the Halloween decorations go to rot in back warehouses and all the stray pieces of candy corn are collected from the gutters and repackaged for the next year (sometimes they're given out to elementary school teachers in an effort to keep them from going crazy throughout the day... or maybe that's just at my school?). BUT it seems like the Christmas hype- all the sentimental commericals and boy band remixes of "Let It Snow" and employees wearing red and green- waits until after the quiet, turkey/pie/beer-induced coma has passed.

Let me be clear. I have absolutely no objection to this early Christmas madness. I love Christmas. I would play Christmas music all year round if I could. I would be lying if I told you I skipped past Mariah Carey's "All I Want for Christmas is You" when it comes on my iPod shuffle in April. But part of what makes it so special is that it only happens for that one part of the year. For me, that one part just happens to last approximately three months.

My love for Christmas began in my childhood. Our Christmases were further proof of the fact that my parents relished in the idea of tricking us. I think they got a little too much pleasure in our gullibility. Christmas home videos reveal timestamps of 12/28/89 and 12/23/91.

"Christmas came early that year?" my sister and I would ask when we dug up the ancient VHS tapes crammed behind the endless monotony of cross country races on film. They were known for telling us that Santa was waiting to visit our house last, or that my mom had called him up and told him we'd be out of town. We joke about it now, how the birth of Christ was the same for everyone except us.

On Christmas morning, we would have to wait at the top of our stairs, peeking shamelessly into the living room where our presents were arranged in five piles, one for each family member. We'd wake up at 6 am, me still sleepy-eyed with my skullet* and my brother and sister twirling and tumbling, drunk with the excitement that can only come from the combination of Christmas morning and unmedicated ADHD. (Note: skullet is a term coined by one of my college teammates after seeing a baby picture of me. I didn't have hair until I was three, and when it finally started to grow in, it sprung from the center of the back of my head, curling down on my neck in tendrils while the top of my head remained only slightly grazed with blonde peach fuzz. Party in the back, skull in the front-> skullet). The rule was that until my parents had a cup of coffee (or 3 or 4), we had to wait at the top of the stairs, hopelessly close to the presents that were still just out of reach.

They'd take their time getting the video camera set up, a mammoth piece of equipment only seen in the '80s. I think it weighed about fifteen pounds, if I had to make a guess. Only then were we allowed to waddle down the stairs, clapping our pudgy hands and squeezing each other's arms in unbridled excitement.

Jon was sadly the recipient of my sister's and my hand-me-downs, despite being the prize male child of the family (hah). One video shows Kristin coming down the stairs, decked out in brand-new yellow foot-y pajamas, followed by the child-sumo-wrestler version of me, The Incredible Skullet (did I mention I was overweight and ate everything in sight before the age of five?) in decidingly older blue foot-y pajamas. Finally, came Jonny, no exception to the pajama uniform of Christmas, his pink and fraying version threadbare in the foot portion, with a piece of the arm gnawed off (probably from an incident where breakfast came too late and I couldn't contain myself). His blue eyes sparkled and little curls bounced, oblivious to the fact that he wore foot-y pajamas that had already endured the bodies of a hyperactive tomboy and an overeating child genius (yes, I came o ut of the womb reading "Are You My Mother?").

It was the same smile he wore when he got a "new" bike for his fifth birthday, which was really the Barbie bike I had helped Kristin unwrap for her fifth birthday, one we shared until a few days before when my dad spray-painted it a manly black and orange for Jon. See? Tricked!

If we ever noticed this trickery, or cared about it, it never showed. We were always intoxicated by that Christmas time happiness, characterized by new sparkly tights (even for Jon, hand-me-down ones that kept him warm under his courdoroys), evergreen garland that hung everywhere in our house, and Harry Connick, Jr. on repeat.

My parents egged on this Christmas mood and continued to do so as we got older. My dad is the only male in his school that participates in The Great Cookie exchange, baking 12 dozen sugar cookie angels to bring to the middle-aged teachers at his school. One year, when Kristin and I were in college, he had this brilliant idea of doing the Fiorillo family shopping exchange. Each of us got $100 from him and had to spend $25 on each family member. We had two hours in our tiny mall to gather all of our presents the day before Christmas Eve. I worked methodically, a detailed list in my pocket of what I would buy each person, the prices and tax calculated precisely next to each item, as well as a plan of when I would go buy a cinnamon sugar soft pretzal with the $2.69 that would be leftover. I ran into my sister mid-spree, holding a three-foot long, three inch diameter cylinder in her coat.

"What the hell is that?" I asked.

"A sausage," she said breathlessly. "How am I gonna hide this from Dad?"

Just then, my cell phone rang. It was Jon. "What do you need?"

"What does fleece mean? And how much do I have left to spend if I already spent $17 on Mom?"

The funniest part was that my mother had gotten Kristin a new cell phone, but had to use it as her own until they could switch the numbers over after the holiday. It was a new kind of flip phone that was way over her head to use, and whenever I tried to call her to ask where she was, she would answer flustered...

"Hello? Hello?! What the... is this thing even on..." Click. So much for only spending two hours in the mall.

When we exchanged presents, we saw that my dad had gotten us all mugs with a family picture on it. He smiled, completely satisfied with himself. "This is what started the whole idea!" He exclaimed. "Wasn't that great?"

"NO!" We shouted in unison. "Why didn't you just buy them for us while we stayed at home and watched Toy Story 2?" He had seen the sausage Kristin had tried to hide from him, and my Mom had nearly broken Kristin's new cell phone when she tried to answer it discreetly with my sister right next to her.

One of the Christmas videos, the one made about three days after Christmas, starred only my sister and me. I was too young to fully grasp our family obsession of Christmas, still bald and too fat to bend over without looking like a plumber, but Kristin was already drinking the punch. My dad was video-taping us coming in from the car, probably from Buffalo where my mom's family lives.

"Sai-wah! SAI-WAH!!! IT'S CHWISSMAIS! SAI-NTA CAME!! OH MY GOSH SAI-NTA!!" (please note the glorious combination of upstate New York accent and a tongue thrust speech impediment that my sister had... priceless)

Kristin opened her first present upon entering. I was more skeptical, boasting my signature two-year-old look of "I'm too busy for this"- my few strands of hair in the back matted beyond recognition and Mardi Gras beads that I demanded from my mother adorning my neck.

"Look Kristin," my mom explained, her inch-thick '80's glassed taking up half of her face. "A sweatsuit. Just what you wanted!" With those four words, came a frenzy of screaming that took over our house for the next half hours. Those words implanted an idea in Kristin's head, one that still exists today. It is the idea that every single thing she saw was just what she wanted. She could be happy with a pet rock, a house with no door, living at home in the basement... anything. But on that day, it was exclusively a Christmas idea.

"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of dress-up heels and purple sparkly boa.

"Just what I wanted!!" to a pair of jean overalls promptly thrown to the side at the sight of another present.

"Just what YOU wanted, Sai-wa!" to a Christmas sweater embroidered with gingerbread men that I eyed, licking my lips.

"Just what I wanted!!" to my Dad's new kitchen spatula.

"Just what I wanted!!" ... "Kristin, that's a piece of wrapping paper."

That one video really sums up Christmas for our family. No matter what Christmas is during a particular year, whether perfect or going all wrong, it is just what we want. The year we were in Buffalo and a 6 foot snowstorm required ALL the family adults to "rescue" my uncle, abandoned on his snowmobile, by taking him to a karaoke bar with all 12 cousins under the leadership of Kristin. Christmas in July while we were camping with my Mom's college roommates and our van got hit by a deer. A Christmas Eve party at my Nana's condo in Florida, with no one under the age of 75 besides us (no alcoholic drink under the proof of 75 either). Christmas decorations still up in late March, the Harry Connick, Jr. CD left in the CD player, scratched but still working. It's still our crazy family, just what we want.