Christmas Morning

We have a few Christmas "traditions". When I get up, I put on Christmas music. I start out with choral music, usually The King's College Choir's CD O come All Ye Faithful. I move onto Messiah, then other CDs as the mood fits, though it's usually Ella Fitzgerald or other Christmas compilations.

For breakfast, I make freshly squeezed orange juice. The Man shucks oysters. The Boy opens his stocking. In the toe of each stocking, I always put a tangerine. We open presents, then we have breakfast.

I always have a gag gift for The Boy. One year, we saw a Shoppers Drug Mart commercial where a boy in the commercial unwrapped a package of toilet paper and hugged it. The Boy laughed and laughed at the silliness of the gift. That year, I gave the boy a package of toilet paper. He loved it. So I did it again the next two years. But this year, my gag gift is money, wrapped in many envelopes that he has to open one by one. He loved unwrapping that too.

This year, we went to Bro's for lunch. It's his custom to incorporate our Christmas meal with his wife's side of the family when it's his turn to host. A few days ago, he warned: Lunch starts at 2 pm sharp. You must arrive before 2 pm. I can't emphasize enough the importance of this.

The Man said: Are we having a fascist lunch? Let's get there at 1:55 and phone him from down the street and ask if there's a Tim Horton's near his house, then tell him we're going to stop for coffee first so we'll be there in an hour.

Don't screw with my Bro, I told The Man, He's going to a lot of work to put this lunch on.

So this morning, The Man did a very funny monologue that had The Boy and me laughing on the couch. He said, I'll phone Bro and say...

...Hey Bro, listen, you know how people wear watches to tell time? In our family, we wear watches just for show. The watches don't work. So if you are expecting us at 2 pm, I'm afraid you're not going to get that gift. Yeah, I know it's 2:30. That's why I'm calling you, so we don't keep you wondering.

...And the other thing is, there are two kinds of time in the world - Greenwich Mean Time and The Man Time. We run on The Man Time. You've never heard of it? Let me tell you about it. Bro, Bro? If you stop laughing, I will tell you. Sylph, he's laughing at us. Sylph, listen to him. What? He's crying? Bro, Bro?

...Oh hi ya, BroWife. Is Bro okay? He's very emotional, isn't he? So listen, I was just telling Bro about the difference between Greenwich Mean Time and The Man Time. What? Yeah, I know it's 3:30 and you still have to serve lunch. BroWife, BroWife?

And it went on like that. Of course he didn't phone Bro like that. When we got to Bro's house, The Man said, Give me the phone, I want to call him. He phoned Bro and said,

Hi, what number are you on Margrath again? (Margrath is where Bro lived a few years ago). Berrypost? You moved? I see. So listen, we're going to be about a half hour late. It's about that from Margrath to Berrypost? Okay, we'll see you then.

Then we got out of the car and walked into Bro's house chuckling.