Holiday Giggles

First, a quick little tidbit. For my new Christmas decorations this year, I picked up a set of Palz block-figure toys from the movie Die Hard (yes, it is a Christmas movie — just look at that box art).

Some of you... well, die hard Die Hard fans may remember Al Powell’s sarcastic line (referring to the FBI agents), “They’ve got the universal terrorist playbook and they’re running it step by step.”

So what’s the little FBI agent figure carrying? Yep, the Universal Terrorist Playbook.

(Special holiday bonus: Things I Learned from Watching Die Hard. Don’t say I never gave you anything.)

Second, a confession to all of those who may have been baffled by my unorthodox “holiday card” this year — yes, I was the one who sent you the “Your New Monkey” letter. I figured it was a hell of a lot more fun than the usual family-update newsletter.

Monkeys are funny.

Okay, so here’s the real holiday story. We had two Christmas celebrations this year — one with my family (on Christmas weekend), and one with Pam’s (on New Year’s weekend). Unfortunately, Pam’s brother had picked up some gifts for the girls that they’d already received the weekend before. Our ten-year-old was fine, gracious — she gave no indication that the gift was a duplicate. But the seven-year-old was not so subtle. Pam tried to goad her out of her melodramatic pout, making every effort to save face, but the little one wasn’t catching on. “But we already got it!” she finally cried out, to Pam’s consternation.

“Honey, when we get a gift we already have, we say, ‘Thank you for thinking of me,’” Pam offered in a brief attempt to explain proper gift-receipt etiquette. “We can always trade it for something else later.”

Her pout still not quite erased, our youngest went on to open her next present — also from Pam’s brother... and also, alas, a duplicate gift (in this case, a new book).

Without missing a beat, she turned to him and deadpanned, “Thank you for thinking of me.”