"Christmas Eve gift!" That's a challenge our family has perpetrated on each other for as long as I can remember. It's simple. When you see or speak to a family member for the first time on Christmas Eve, and if you say "Christmas Eve gift!" first, they have to give you one of your Christmas presents right then and there.
To my knowledge, no one ever designated what KIND of present it should be: Naughty? or nice? One year Granpa gave me a gallon jar of whole dill pickles. Took us a whole year to eat those monsters. Another time he gave me a box of Millionaire chocolates. It's the thought that counts, right? (I wonder if I had been a sour-puss one year and a sweetheart the other?)
Over the years, as my brothers and sister moved apart, and as we have passed that tradition down to our children who have set up their own households, it's the game that has come to matter, and not the gift.
We have learned that if I call you, you answer the phone "Christmas Eve Gift!" and I lose. (That kinda puts a crimp in holiday phone calls.) There are arguments going around about whether text messaging counts, or emails. When John and I were on Kauai, Christmas came to Texas six hours before it came to us. The question then became, by who's clock was it Christmas Eve? With Granpa and our kids, I am the undisputed champion. (Probably because they let me be...) But one year I totally, completely forgot. I think it was our youngest son, Christopher, who nailed me first. I'm not sure I have EVER heard such total, unabandoned joy come out of an adult before - which was the best Christmas Eve gift I could have.
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