The communists are coming!

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Well, we did it again. Somehow, we pulled it off and had a great Christmas with the kids and extended family. We are truly blessed.

This year was the last year our boy will officially be a kid – he’ll be 18 before next Christmas – so we decided to spoil him a little this year, since from here on out he’ll be getting ties, underwear, belts and other assorted grown-up things for Christmas. (This isn’t entirely true. Our 28-year-old daughter pointed out she still gets spoiled and I blame George. He would buy a different color pet monkey for every day of the week for those kids, if he had the means and could find a monkey salesman. He loves to spoil the kids. I think it’s a “trucker daddy” kind of thing.)

“The communists have ruined Christmas!’“The communists have ruined Christmas!’

It was awesome to see our big ol’ goofy teenager act like a little kid again. We haven’t surprised him in a long time – Christmas from about age 12 on has been pretty cut and dried. He gives us a list and we completely ignore it. I’m kidding – we learned a long time ago not to disturb the universe by ignoring the Christmas lists of our children. But this year, he didn’t ask for much. He knew with the expense of kidney-stone surgery for his dad and the rebuild for the truck, our bank account was screaming and gasping – and that was before buying any gifts.

Of course George (the aforementioned spoiler of children), couldn’t let his last Christmas as a kid pass without one last big gift, and through the magic of Christmas and the willingness to part with his custom Les Paul guitar, he was able to buy the boy a Play Station 4, which was completely unexpected and possibly the one thing he actually wanted.

The look on his face was priceless. George’s – not the boy’s, though his face was pretty epic when he realized his dad had pulled it off. The look of complete satisfaction on George’s face was worth three Les Paul guitars, and if I had one I’d give it away to see that look again.

Needless to say, it was a warm and happy moment, and we enjoyed watching the kid scurry around, hooking up his new toy. When he plopped down on the floor in front of the TV and sat cross-legged like he used to when he was a little boy, George and I both had a little teary moment of nostalgia.

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The moment was sweet, but short-lived. After attempting to set up his Sony account about 50 times, the boy finally got online to see what the problem was. The news wasn’t good. He stormed into the living room, fists in the air.

“The damn communists have ruined Christmas!!”

This is where we both realized he definitely isn’t a little boy anymore. And while he was kidding about Christmas being ruined, he was pretty disappointed he couldn’t play the game he got for Christmas, because the North Koreans hacked Sony and apparently it wasn’t just the movie studio. The servers for a couple of the online games are toast – word to the wise – check the website before buying a PS4 package deal.

So, except for the filthy communist intervention, I got everything I wanted for Christmas. Next year, we’ll remember to wear our tinfoil hats.

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