Christmas Snooping

While writing a Christmas-y article for The Sourdough, my sister reminded me of this episode of snooping as well. Of the two, this was less of a Northern theme, and thus you get it here, instead of there. Aren’t you lucky? Yup!

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Lest you think that I was the only snooper in my house around gift giving time, I thought I’d tell the story of yet another sneaky peeking person that grew up in my house: my sister.

Now, in case some of you get the feeling that I only speak badly of my sister, let me assure that it’s for good reason. Wait! No, that’s not what I meant to put! I meant to say that I love her dearly, for I do. She and I had our falling outs and knock down drag out fights that she swears I always started while we were growing up. There is five years, nine days, and four hours age difference between us, and at times that distance seemed unmanageable. Other times, it was perfect.

Like when I was selling box upon box upon box of nasty pecan rolls for my school. Shelling out a buck a piece for something that tasted so very disgusting never quite set well with people, no matter what we were raising money for that year. No matter what, though, I always sold a TON of candy, because I had discovered the secret! She was half my size, had long brown hair and the biggest blue eyes you ever did see. When she was 4, 5, 6 years old, I could take her around door to door with me. I’d hold her hand, stand there with the box of those disgusting pecan rolls, and not say a word. Ladybug, however, would look up in all her blue-eyed earnestness and lisp, “Would you buy thome candy from my thister, pwease?”

It was marketing gold!
(It’s no wonder I later went to school for a degree that included advertising and packaging! I was good at it!)

Other times having the little tag-a-long tag a long was not so fun. She always wanted to hang with my friends and me, and then bugged my boyfriends, and we bickered and fought near constantly. There were rare moments that we got along, too, but only came with consistency once we both grew up. I learned to ignore her faults, and she learned I really was always right.

Oh fine, and vice versa!

Anyway, back to Christmas snooping. I already confessed my snooping sin, and as I told Ladybug about it, she helped me remember the year Mom got back at as ALL – we all did time for her crime.

It was the year of the Care Bear House.

My sister was obsessed with Care Bears. She knew them all by name, and watched the show and they were the first things to go on her list that year. She had to have been 9 or 10, which means at 14/15, most likely my list included a radio/cassette player. Well, she got it in her head to take a peek to see if her wish had been granted, if she had gotten the coveted Care Bear House.

She got caught. My mom was champion of the whole eyes in the back of her head thing, after all. To my credit, I had WARNED Ladybug not to do it, but what did I know? I was just the big sister, who’d ever listen to me? Well, she got caught and it was her turn to see the mixed feelings in mom’s eyes. Me? I was content in my rightness, and continued to watch TV. Nothing was really said about the matter after that, so we figured it was over and done with, forgiven and forgotten. Little did we know that Mom had plans of her own.

Christmas morning dawned with our normal off the wall excitement and we raced to the tree to see what had appeared in the night. Ladybug grabbed the box that she knew was the right size, the only one that could hold her Care Bear House. Then Mom said, quite calmly, “Are you sure that’s yours?”

My sister blinked, and then looked at the nametag, checking it once, twice, and then… her voice wavered as she handed the box to Dad, barely managing to whisper. “It’s for you.”

Mom looked satisfied, Dad looked amused, and Ladybug – oh she looked quite confused. There was no other box that could house her dearest wish, there was no way that could be for DAD. It was hers, it had to be!

We passed out the rest of the gifts, and then it was time to start unwrapping. Ladybug went first, and that was when we discovered the ruse. Each gift that year was wrapped not once, but twice! Under the first layer there was a tag that said “Gotcha! I’m really for _____” and named the person who’s gift it really was. Which was good, because I could see under that paper on the box that Ladybug held and in it was my radio/cassette player! In turn, she had given her Care Bear House to Dad to open the first layer, and the one I opened really belonged to Dad.

Mom had gotten us good! There was nothing we could do but laugh, and applaud the best Christmas Joke Ever! Needless to say, the next year? We didn’t snoop, and we opened our gifts VERY carefully. And suspiciously. Wouldn’t you?

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PS: That cassette player/radio? Was willingly accepted as a re-gift several times. When I got a bigger, better one, it was handed down to Ladybug, who then gave it to our cousin R, who then gave it to her brother Deke. That’s the last time I saw it – but it had given almost 20 years good service by that time. I wonder if it’s still out there making some one happy (or, making them wonder who in the heck ever made them things without cd players build it?!?) (OMG I’m so old.)