We break an important Christmas movie rule

A C ERTAIN POINT OF V IEW

There are many Christmas movies that depict adults having to work on the holiday, and it’s almost always portrayed as near sacrilegious. Scrooge originally wants Bob Cratchit to come in to the counting-house for Christmas, Buddy’s dad has to do a presentation on Christmas Eve, and Michael Keaton’s character in “Jack Frost” (who is apparently named…Jack Frost, huh) dies in a car crash because he initially chose to go to a gig for his band rather than go on his trip with his family on Christmas (though he died when he changed his mind and decided to go back, so really if he would have just went to the gig, he would have been fine. So is the moral of the story not to celebrate Christmas with your family? I don’t know, this movie is really weird).

I remember watching these movies as a kid and being just as bewildered as to these characters’ actions as the movie wants you to be. It was near blasphemous to even consider such a thing at the time. Working on Christmas? It was nigh unfathomable to someone who was lucky enough to have parents whose jobs allowed them to be around for almost every holiday.

Of course, the realities of the world eventually sank in, and as someone who is married to a nurse and has a sister-in-law who is also a nurse, the concept of not celebrating Christmas with the whole family on the 25th of December is not a foreign one. More often than not, we usually end up getting together on either the weekend before or after.

This year, Saturday was our family Christmas. While I still worked in the morning that day, Mikaela and I were able to pack up and get over to my parents’ house in time for a dinner of Christmas classics. I somehow got out of washing the dishes, despite having been the last to submit my Christmas list, though my services were still enlisted for rinsing and drying.

Much to the delight of my nieces and nephews, the exchanging of presents followed. The wild free-for-all of the kids opening their gifts was less organized than when the adults all unwrapped our presents one at a time, but it certainly was faster and better suited the patience level of those involved.

I had some suspicions about my own gifts when Mikaela specifically withheld one when we opened our presents from each other on Christmas Day, citing that it would be better if I opened it with everyone. One Christmas several years ago, Mom said that she wanted a new winter hat, and, after not consulting each other as to what we were all getting her, she ended the day with a number of new winter hats. Since then, it’s been a bit of a joke amongst the Underwoods, and I had an idea that this was likely the latest entry to that multi-gift saga.

I was not incorrect in my assumptions and I came away with four new Wisconsin Badger T-shirts. My brother Zach was also “victim” of the joke as he is now the proud owner of four new Wisconsin Badger sweatshirts. One cannot have enough Badger gear, I suppose.

We then played the worst game of Uno of all time in which my cards were more of a “deck” than a “hand” for ninety-five percent of the game, put together our annual Christmas puzzle, and played a pig-stealing card game that I was also terrible at. This was capped by a Pictionary-esque game concocted by my niece, with the strange rule that if no one can guess your picture, you get the point. Which of course led to her drawing a bug with peacock feather (which is a new one for me), her Uncle Nathaniel if he were teleported through time which messed him up and gave him a small body (her words), and a robot-looking monstrosity that was ultimately deemed by her to be a “bird.” Needless to say, I did not win that game either.

But after what felt like too short a time, we were saying our goodbyes and heading out into the foggy night. It’s something that seems to happen with ever greater frequency, the slippage of time, and I don’t know if there is any way to stop it.

Still, I suppose it makes one appreciate the time you do have. While we may not have been celebrating on Christmas Day itself, breaking the Christmas movie cardinal rule, it’s not so much whether it’s the 25th or the 28th, but the people you are spending it with.

I hope all of you who happen to be reading this had an equally enjoyable holiday! And if I get reincarnated as an unintentionally scary looking snowman, I guess you all know why.

BY

NATHANIEL U NDERWOOD REPORTER