Thanksmas Present Wrap-Up

I went back to Texas for Thanksgiving, and as usual, my family crammed in a double-dare-dosage of holidays into the extended weekend.  Thanksgiving was Thursday, Christmas was Friday.  (For the past 10 or so years, my family has been exchanging gifts at Thanksgiving instead of Christmas.  This is a beautiful thing, and I highly recommend it to anyone not tied to traditional "calendar-based" holidays.  Let me put it this way: you get all your Christmas shopping done in October.  And then sit around in November and December looking down your nose at all the chumps scrambling to buy gifts.)

Typically we've drawn names, but this year we decided to turn in into one of those swapping party games.  I still don't know the proper name for it.  White Elephant?  Chinese Auction?  White Chinese Elephant Auction?  Whatever.  There is a pile of wrapped gifts, and you draw names.  On your turn, you can pick an unopened gift from the table, or steal something someone else has already unwrapped.

* Note: Mom refused to buy a present on Dad's behalf.  It was mandated that he was responsible for selecting, purchasing, and wrapping his own gift.  We were all quite anxious to see what this would be.  The last time something like this happened he contributed a framed portrait of Sharon Stone.  

** Additional note: The other mandate for Dad's gift was that it could not have anything to do with Sharon Stone.

I think I was 3rd out of 12, and my strategy was to choose the heaviest gift on the unwrapped table.  When I picked up that box, Dad started squirming with glee.  Little did I know that it was his box.  I tore away the paper to reveal...

A hydraulic trolley jack:

He clapped at his own cleverness, and explained that he needed one for the shed and was hoping to steal it back.  The swap pressed on.  Staci stole the jack from me, although I don't know why she would ever need a hydraulic jack.  I think she was just doing it for the satisfaction of taking it away from me.  At the very end of the game, Dad stole the jack back from her...and thus succeeded in his master plan.

There was one spare gift left on the table from my Uncle Joe.  Since the gift I got stuck with was too big for me to bring back to Seattle, I opted for that gift instead.  So ladies and gentleman, my big Christmas present for 2007 was......an autographed Hooters calendar:




Merry Christmas.