Monday 29 April 2013

My Christmas Gift.




It was Christmas time again and once again, my daughter Rebecca was asking, "What do you want for Christmas, Dad?"
     "Nothing really," I replied.  After twenty-three years, she knew that this meant boxer shorts and socks, the kind that help that tender old bunion.  This was a Christmas rituals for me.
     In the small town of Stutterhiem, Eastern Cape, where we lived, life had a exciting rhythm.  After living in Durban for many years, I had returned to my home town to be near my own dad, and life took on a predictable sort of rhythm.  But this year, my daughter, Rebecca, and her young husband, Paul, changed all that.
     Every day for two weeks prior to Christmas, unable to contain her excitement, she repeatedly said, "You'll never guess, but you're going to love what we got you for Christmas!"  The girl was forever teasing me for a reaction.  She wanted to impress me.
     I'm no Scrooge, so please don't get me wrong.  I'm simply one of those people who's been around for some time and i'm a bit cynical and hard to impress.  I must admit, however, that it was fun to watch and listen to her excitement and enthusiastic teasing day after day.  Her joy of my reaction to this gift was contagious.  By the morning of Christmas Eve, I had become more than just curious.
     Around 11:00 a.m. on the 24th, my wife and I were asked to join the kids for some last-minute shopping. My wife wanted to finish up her own festive preparations, and Dad, well, I just wanted a cold beer and a snooze.  Four hours later, the kids were back at the door from their shopping mission.
     "We have your gift out in the car, Dad," Rebecca exclaimed, "and it's getting cold!"
     We were then not asked, but ordered to vacate the premises.  No, not just to another room, but upstairs and out of sight, "No peeking!" command.  Heck, my old army sergeant was gentler.  "Get out!  Get out!" Rebecca ordered.
     Obediently, we retreated upstairs.
     The minutes passed in that odd kind of anxious, quiet anticipation that makes butterflies in your stomach.  We strained our ears but couldn't hear a thing.
     Then we heard them, "Okay, you can come down now!"
     As we walked down the stairs, they sent us into the front room where the Christmas gift was waiting to be opened.  Immediately, my excited daughter said, "No waiting until Christmas morning.  Open it now!"
     "Okay," I said.  "This is highly irregular, this is breaking the rules, but what the heck is it?"  I thought out loud.  The three-foot-square, irregularly shaped lump over by the tree was smothered under blankets.  Rebecca took out her camera, and the guessing game.
     "Maybe it's a coffee machine," my wife offered.
     "No, no," I said.  "It's gotta be something perishable, otherwise they wouldn't have been so anxious to bring it in out of the cold.  Maybe it's a crate of oranges, or maybe it's a puppy!"
     By now, my daughter was about to explode with excitement, and I, too, had passed the stage of mildly curious.
     "What on earth can it be?" I asked as I felt the lumpy object, looking for a clue.  My daughter sharply rapped my knuckles with a classic, "Dad!"
     Finally, we arrived at the unveiling.  "Okay," Rebecca instructed us, "on the count of three both of you grab a corner of the blanket."  She stood by with the camera, and even though I was trying my best to remain unimpressed, I'd by now reached an emotional state frustration.  My heartbeat sped.  My wife and I lifted the blanket, and the gift was exposed.
     The next few minutes were a blur.  My heart pounded.  The blood rushed to my head.  My stomach contracted. Overwhelmed I thought, I can't believe my eyes!  Perhaps I am delusional!  This is just not possible!
     The flash of my daughter's camera went off, rising up out of the of blankets and wrapping me in an enormous bear hug was none other than my six-foot-two, one hundred and seventy-five pound first-born son Peter, home for Christmas for the first time in nineteen years!
What a beautiful Christmas gift, the best ever!!! 


 

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