"the best day of the year (part one): an early Christmas!"
Thursday, December 20, 2007 Filed in: my life
PROLOGUE
i think every year has at least one of "those" days. you know the ones where you know when you look back on that year, you think of that day. i suppose it could be a good day or a bad day, but in this instance, i'm talking about the good days. last Thursday was that day for 2007. this (and the following two blogs) will deal with why.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act I
Stacy and i sort of have a tradition. we celebrate Christmas early. now, my official reason and justification for this is that we do it so that when the real Christmas comes around, we can focus on others and not on ourselves. this, of course, is a lie. we really do it because i'm super-impatient. and it's not so much about me getting the gifts (though i thoroughly enjoy that) but it's that once i have her gifts, i can't wait to give them to her.
so, in early November, we decided that our Christmas would be on Thursday, December 13th. (i pushed really hard for Friday, December 7th, but was brutally rebuffed.) the problem was, i got Stacy's big gift two weeks before that day. this, for me, was torture. so, after what seemed like a decade of waiting in agony, the day came!
all she had told me about my gift was that she would be picking me up at 10.15 to go to wherever it was we were going to. (a-ha! we're going somewhere! i'm so perceptive.) anyway, i told her she needed to be here at 9.30 then so i could give her her gifts. (that sentence had the word "her" twice in a row. though it made sense, i still didn't feel comfortable typing it.) so, at 9.30, in the middle of the chaos that was going on at my house (which you'll hear about in the second blog in this blogtastic mini-series), Stacy arrived ready to be dazzled by what i had told her was "the best Christmas present ever." but, first... i had to throw her off a bit.
in case you couldn't tell, to me, this is all sort of a game. so, i decided that i needed to have some fun with it. i had been picking up a few smaller things here and there over the past months that i knew she wanted, but that, alone, didn't live up to the title of "the best Christmas present ever." so, we went in my room and i pulled out a wrapped gift. (it may or may not be important to know that all gifts wrapped by me are wrapped in aluminum foil. this ensures easy wrapping and unwrapping as well as ensuring that mine are the shiniest gifts under the tree.) she quickly ripped off the Reynolds Wrap™ surrounding her gift and found a new case for her computer. nice? sure. exciting? perhaps. "the best Christmas present ever?" um... no. but she was excited (or pretended to be). then she noticed that the case was a little heavy. she opened it and found another shiny, wrapped prize inside. could it be the complete DVD set of the BBC documentary, Planet Earth? why yes it could! (she's been talking about this for a while and i found it on sale at Costco.) again... she was happy. but "the greatest Christmas present ever?" no. anyway, we hugged and she thanked me thinking that she had received all that she would. and, while appreciative for sure, i'm sure she had to be wondering, "why would he bill this as the best Christmas present ever?"
after that, i told her i was going to run into the bathroom and asked her if she could grab one of my belts for me in my closet. she looked at me with the "get your own freakin' belt" look that i had expected, but then, being the great girlfriend that she is, she said "okay" and headed for the closet. as she walked in the closet, i awaited her reaction. "um... THIS is NOT a belt!" is how she chose to respond. she had found it. her final gift. not wrapped at all. sitting in plain site. her new, Paul Frank "Aku" Beach Cruiser.
she had been saying she wanted a beach cruiser for like six months. i kind of pretended to ignore her talking about it and when we did, it was about how it would be smarter to wait till next spring or summer. then i totally lied and told her that Megan wanted one and wanted me to research them for her. so i did. and Stacy helped and told me which one she would want. it couldn't have been easier! plus, she had no idea. awesome.
it was great. exactly as i'd hoped it would go. she was excited. and now, it was my turn!
INTERMISSION
so, i know this blog is getting long at this point and we still have the other half of the gift giving to go. so, go to the bathroom if you need. get a beverage. cook a Hot Pocket™. and then come back for the rest.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act II
so, now that my anticipation of giving was over, the anticipation of receiving was growing. we got in Stacy's car and she pulled out of the driveway and immediately over to the side of the road. huh? were we there? no. she handed me a small, wrapped (in regular wrapping paper) gift and told me to open it. i did and found a bandana. confused, i pondered the reasons she could be giving me this. (did she want me to be more like Alex? were we going to a rodeo? if so... i hate stuff like that. how do i tell her i hate rodeos. really, i think anything that combines country music with cowboys and wild animals is just a really bad idea. why would she think i would want to do something like that?) of course, being a moron, i missed the real (and obvious) reason. i needed to be blindfolded. duh.
so, i put on the blindfold (and my sunglasses over that so i didn't look like a complete idiot) and we headed off for what seemed like an eternity. (i think it was about 10 minutes.) i tried to guess where we were at every step of the way. she kept acting amazed that i was figuring it out. (of course, when we got to where we were going, i realized that i had, in fact, figured nothing out and we were at least 20 miles from where i thought we were.) anyway, we got there and i took of the blindfold to find...
we're at Balboa Beach! wait. Balboa Beach? i'm confused. why are we at Balboa Beach? it's December. and we're going to the beach. my look of confusion must have been obvious because she said "come on... you'll see!" and we started walking out toward the Fun Zone. we came around the corner, and there we were. in the next milliseconds i had several flashbacks that made me understand exactly why we were where we were. i will briefly share them with you now.
Stacy and i always watched "Arrested Development" (if you haven't seen it, buy the DVDs... best show ever) and one of the characters (GOB Bluth... pictured) always rode around Newport Beach on his Segway. we always found this very entertaining because he looked so dorky on it.
several times i had commented to Stacy how, as amazingly dorky as they were, i really wanted to ride one of those Segway things.
the flashbacks ended and it made perfect sense why we were standing in front of the Segway store. Stacy had booked us a Segway tour of the Balboa Peninsula. now, you might be thinking... "that's lame." or "you're a huge dork." well, the first one is absolutely not true. (the second is fairly accurate.) but, we had SO much fun on this tour. yes, we looked like idiots. but, holy crap are those things fun! and our tour guide, Jeff, knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE that lives down there. (did you know that McG who directed both the Charlie's Angels movies and produced The OC has a beach house right there and that he has a multi-million dollar grass lot right next door just so his dogs have a place to poo? i did!) for the next two hours, we tooled around on our Segways and had a blast. we were laughing the whole time and it was awesome. (also, let me just say that those things are amazing. they have no controls! you just lean where you want to go, and they go. it's like mind-controlled travel.)
i think Stacy one-upped me on this one. i told her, i'd never been given an experiential gift. people always give things, not experiences. this was amazingly fun and i'll always remember it. (i highly recommend it. seriously.) then we grabbed lunch in the Fun Zone. (i had this ridiculously large burger that came with fries... on it!) we got back to the car, and she handed me another gift. it was a pair of Monarchy™ jeans that i had really wanted. this day couldn't get any better.
oh... but it could! and it did. and that will be the content of my next two (significantly shorter) blogs.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
matt
i think every year has at least one of "those" days. you know the ones where you know when you look back on that year, you think of that day. i suppose it could be a good day or a bad day, but in this instance, i'm talking about the good days. last Thursday was that day for 2007. this (and the following two blogs) will deal with why.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act I
Stacy and i sort of have a tradition. we celebrate Christmas early. now, my official reason and justification for this is that we do it so that when the real Christmas comes around, we can focus on others and not on ourselves. this, of course, is a lie. we really do it because i'm super-impatient. and it's not so much about me getting the gifts (though i thoroughly enjoy that) but it's that once i have her gifts, i can't wait to give them to her.
so, in early November, we decided that our Christmas would be on Thursday, December 13th. (i pushed really hard for Friday, December 7th, but was brutally rebuffed.) the problem was, i got Stacy's big gift two weeks before that day. this, for me, was torture. so, after what seemed like a decade of waiting in agony, the day came!
all she had told me about my gift was that she would be picking me up at 10.15 to go to wherever it was we were going to. (a-ha! we're going somewhere! i'm so perceptive.) anyway, i told her she needed to be here at 9.30 then so i could give her her gifts. (that sentence had the word "her" twice in a row. though it made sense, i still didn't feel comfortable typing it.) so, at 9.30, in the middle of the chaos that was going on at my house (which you'll hear about in the second blog in this blogtastic mini-series), Stacy arrived ready to be dazzled by what i had told her was "the best Christmas present ever." but, first... i had to throw her off a bit.
in case you couldn't tell, to me, this is all sort of a game. so, i decided that i needed to have some fun with it. i had been picking up a few smaller things here and there over the past months that i knew she wanted, but that, alone, didn't live up to the title of "the best Christmas present ever." so, we went in my room and i pulled out a wrapped gift. (it may or may not be important to know that all gifts wrapped by me are wrapped in aluminum foil. this ensures easy wrapping and unwrapping as well as ensuring that mine are the shiniest gifts under the tree.) she quickly ripped off the Reynolds Wrap™ surrounding her gift and found a new case for her computer. nice? sure. exciting? perhaps. "the best Christmas present ever?" um... no. but she was excited (or pretended to be). then she noticed that the case was a little heavy. she opened it and found another shiny, wrapped prize inside. could it be the complete DVD set of the BBC documentary, Planet Earth? why yes it could! (she's been talking about this for a while and i found it on sale at Costco.) again... she was happy. but "the greatest Christmas present ever?" no. anyway, we hugged and she thanked me thinking that she had received all that she would. and, while appreciative for sure, i'm sure she had to be wondering, "why would he bill this as the best Christmas present ever?"
after that, i told her i was going to run into the bathroom and asked her if she could grab one of my belts for me in my closet. she looked at me with the "get your own freakin' belt" look that i had expected, but then, being the great girlfriend that she is, she said "okay" and headed for the closet. as she walked in the closet, i awaited her reaction. "um... THIS is NOT a belt!" is how she chose to respond. she had found it. her final gift. not wrapped at all. sitting in plain site. her new, Paul Frank "Aku" Beach Cruiser.
she had been saying she wanted a beach cruiser for like six months. i kind of pretended to ignore her talking about it and when we did, it was about how it would be smarter to wait till next spring or summer. then i totally lied and told her that Megan wanted one and wanted me to research them for her. so i did. and Stacy helped and told me which one she would want. it couldn't have been easier! plus, she had no idea. awesome.
it was great. exactly as i'd hoped it would go. she was excited. and now, it was my turn!
INTERMISSION
so, i know this blog is getting long at this point and we still have the other half of the gift giving to go. so, go to the bathroom if you need. get a beverage. cook a Hot Pocket™. and then come back for the rest.
AN EARLY CHRISTMAS: Act II
so, now that my anticipation of giving was over, the anticipation of receiving was growing. we got in Stacy's car and she pulled out of the driveway and immediately over to the side of the road. huh? were we there? no. she handed me a small, wrapped (in regular wrapping paper) gift and told me to open it. i did and found a bandana. confused, i pondered the reasons she could be giving me this. (did she want me to be more like Alex? were we going to a rodeo? if so... i hate stuff like that. how do i tell her i hate rodeos. really, i think anything that combines country music with cowboys and wild animals is just a really bad idea. why would she think i would want to do something like that?) of course, being a moron, i missed the real (and obvious) reason. i needed to be blindfolded. duh.
so, i put on the blindfold (and my sunglasses over that so i didn't look like a complete idiot) and we headed off for what seemed like an eternity. (i think it was about 10 minutes.) i tried to guess where we were at every step of the way. she kept acting amazed that i was figuring it out. (of course, when we got to where we were going, i realized that i had, in fact, figured nothing out and we were at least 20 miles from where i thought we were.) anyway, we got there and i took of the blindfold to find...
we're at Balboa Beach! wait. Balboa Beach? i'm confused. why are we at Balboa Beach? it's December. and we're going to the beach. my look of confusion must have been obvious because she said "come on... you'll see!" and we started walking out toward the Fun Zone. we came around the corner, and there we were. in the next milliseconds i had several flashbacks that made me understand exactly why we were where we were. i will briefly share them with you now.
Stacy and i always watched "Arrested Development" (if you haven't seen it, buy the DVDs... best show ever) and one of the characters (GOB Bluth... pictured) always rode around Newport Beach on his Segway. we always found this very entertaining because he looked so dorky on it.
several times i had commented to Stacy how, as amazingly dorky as they were, i really wanted to ride one of those Segway things.
the flashbacks ended and it made perfect sense why we were standing in front of the Segway store. Stacy had booked us a Segway tour of the Balboa Peninsula. now, you might be thinking... "that's lame." or "you're a huge dork." well, the first one is absolutely not true. (the second is fairly accurate.) but, we had SO much fun on this tour. yes, we looked like idiots. but, holy crap are those things fun! and our tour guide, Jeff, knows EVERYTHING about EVERYONE that lives down there. (did you know that McG who directed both the Charlie's Angels movies and produced The OC has a beach house right there and that he has a multi-million dollar grass lot right next door just so his dogs have a place to poo? i did!) for the next two hours, we tooled around on our Segways and had a blast. we were laughing the whole time and it was awesome. (also, let me just say that those things are amazing. they have no controls! you just lean where you want to go, and they go. it's like mind-controlled travel.)
i think Stacy one-upped me on this one. i told her, i'd never been given an experiential gift. people always give things, not experiences. this was amazingly fun and i'll always remember it. (i highly recommend it. seriously.) then we grabbed lunch in the Fun Zone. (i had this ridiculously large burger that came with fries... on it!) we got back to the car, and she handed me another gift. it was a pair of Monarchy™ jeans that i had really wanted. this day couldn't get any better.
oh... but it could! and it did. and that will be the content of my next two (significantly shorter) blogs.
MERRY CHRISTMAS!
matt