“Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho.” – Die Hard
And AOC couldn’t return it, because Kellogg’s® wouldn’t take it unless she found the cereal number.
I think, for a kid, the optimum age of Christmas is around 12 or 13. That’s an amazingly powerful age: the body is beginning to change into an adult, but hasn’t yet. The full burn of testosterone (or estrogen) hasn’t yet kicked in. In my case I was smart enough to know that there was a joke, and dimly aware that I wasn’t yet in on it.
Books were magical at that time, and for the same reason. I could be reading away on a book from decades earlier, and be thrilled by new plots (to me) and new ideas (to me) as I sat in the school bus on the way to and from Wilder Mountain. I still recall reading about Conan the Buccaneer fighting and leading men into battle for Crom, women, and glory.
Conan’s favorite cereal was Cimmerian Toast Crunch.
Christmas though, was magical. It was a time when parents conspired to . . . make you happy. To give you a gift that made your day. While I never thought my parents were evil, exactly, they were never free with the cash. Generally, if I wanted something (outside of food and clothing) that wasn’t a book, I had to work for it and earn it.
I’m glad for that lesson, which in itself was a gift. Nothing is more empowering than the idea that you get what you earn. Victims are at the mercy of life. People who focus on earning tend to feel that each day of life is a gift and an opportunity, and not a present left by Santa.
Speaking of Santa, by 12 I was long past him. Over a December dinner not long before Christmas, I announced at the table that Santa wasn’t real. I was in kindergarten. I don’t recall how I figured it out, but I do recall being very proud of the fact that I knew.
Santa’s workers aren’t required to have Obamacare. Technically they’re elf-employed.
However, my brother, (also named John Wilder because my parents were horribly uncreative), was in seventh grade. His response to my dinnertime revelation was to kick me in the shin. Why? First, he wasn’t particularly fond of me at that point. Second, he knew that when I told Ma and Pa Wilder that there was no Santa, that the presents in the stockings would become a trickle.
He was wrong.
As we got older Christmas didn’t get worse, it got better. I recall one Christmas when it peaked. It was the best Christmas ever, and I was 12. Honestly, I can only recall one gift I got – a Star Wars® jigsaw puzzle, back in the time back before Star Wars™ sucked. I still recall the calmness of that Christmas afternoon – the Sun shining down on the pure white snow outside – a bright, cool day, no warmer than about 25°F (two megaliters).
Mark Hamill found that role Luke-rative.
My brother and my Dad took Great-Grandma Wilder (age: about a million) home. When they got home, in a weird coincidence, everyone met at the same part of the room at the same time. And?
The one and only spontaneous group hug I’ve ever been in.
Outside of the puzzle, I don’t really recall what present I got or what present I gave anyone. Maybe there was a Nerf® football. But it was all nice and perfect, from the day, the weather, the food, and the quiet. This was a time before every movie was available at every moment in time, a time before cell phones, and a time when if you didn’t know something, it had to be important enough to walk over to the encyclopedia to look it up. Everyone was happy, and it was the greatest amount of peace that I ever felt as a kid at Christmas. Of course, the best present I ever got was still the BB gun (LINK).
Why can’t any tyrannosaurus rex catch a football? They’re all dead.
Sometime after 13, my imagination was so big that it was impossible to surprise me. It’s not that Christmas was disappointing, it’s just that my innocence was over. As an adult, I found the same answer: the perfect age to have kids at Christmas was also 12 or 13.
Pugsley is our youngest, and he’s well past 13. On Sunday, Christmas will be mellow. I got The Mrs. the same gift I’ve gotten her for the last 10 years (a very, very nice bottle of scotch). She’d be just as happy if she didn’t get anything, but I do know she likes it. I’m thinking the element of surprise is gone.
Pugsley and The Boy? Well, they just might be reading this, so I’ll not spoil anything. I may not have a lot of surprises, but I think we’ll get a smile or two on Christmas morning. Me? I’d be just as happy putting together a jigsaw puzzle on a bright winter afternoon.
I guess getting older was a Sidious error.
But the sunlight of those days is long past, and my world has moved on. And that’s as it should be. Christmas will itself be the gift. And an opportunity. So I’ll treat it as such.
To all of you reading this: Merry Christmas. May it be filled with joy, love, and peace.
Merry Christmas, everybody!
Hope yours was great!
John, I have that very book you pictured on my shelf today! I still love Conan (Howard still out-writes most authors today, even if it seems a bit cheesy).
Your assessment of peak Christmas may be correct. For the Christmas on my 12th birthday, I got the original Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Boxed Set (with the Dragon on the box, the basic rule set, dice, and “Keep On the Borderlands”). I ended up falling asleep at my grandparents’ house that day, exhausted with the books clutched in my hands.
I will say that my parents conspired to make us happy – as, I suppose we do our children.
For the record, I still believe. If for no other reason, out of sheer cussedness and the fact that world is richer with Santa in it than if he were not there.
Merry Christmas!
I have it, too. Along with “Keep on the Borderlands” . . .
I too have that book, along with many others chronicling the Conan Saga, that I revisit from time to time. R.E. Howard is one of my all-time favorite authors, and I have purchased almost every single short story anthology of his works.
Although I’m not particularly fond of a lot of the Pastiche Authors, L. Sprague DeCamp and Lin Carter are by far the best at emulating his style.
He was friends, albeit only through correspondence, with H.P. Lovecraft, who considered him to be one of the greatest Horror Story writers of the time.
I love the Conan and Kull stories immensely, but it’s his Horror stories that I’m most fond of. Pigeons From Hell is PARTICULARLY Awesome.
Now on my list to find . . .
“…T. Rex catching a football.”
If you haven’t seen it on YouTube, look up the late Mike Leach’s snippet after the Bama game where we had umpteen dropped passes & fumbles. He said that our players would evolve to have “T. Rex arms and big heads”.
Hahaha!
I have that Conan book on my self also. Thanks for writing things that make me think and make me remember. Merry Christmas.
Hope yours was great!
“Conan’s favorite cereal was Cimmerian Toast Crunch.”
And he ate it from a bowl made out of a hubcap, by Chrome!
Hahaha!
From Your link: “It looked very real. Mine was the one on the bottom.”
50+ yrs, same pride and joy. Just closed my eyes…can STILL smell that peculiar odor from Too much oil…can still ‘see’ the fog coming outta the barrel, first few shots. Think i was 11 when i saved up enough for Crosman® 760, Made 25¢/Hr. cleaning up job sites…Think it cost $18- $20? And Pellets! MUCH better ballistics for longer ranges. And powerful.
That one turned me into a killer. Too many birds, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, whatever. Mice at night in the barn when the farm cats dwindled intermittently. The magnetized bolt would easily retain 3 BB’s. Layin’ in the hayloft, pie tin with a gob of peanut butter down below. Perfect for learning patience. Total quiet, and then the sound of little claws on aluminum. Flick on the flashlight… Start over. Just for the sake of pretending i was a ‘Man’. Learned about ‘refraction’ shooting Mud Suckers off of the bridge, plenty of snakes in the cut sandstone foundation. Head shots to collect my trophy, rather than them slithering outta sight, probably died of agony/infection. Ashamed now. But marksmanship is marksmanship. ONLY the ‘drop’ changes.
Merry Christmas, and Happy birthday Jesus. Yes, Im well aware of the suspect date.
Merry Christmas!