This Christmas has been a strange one for me. Normally, I am awash with the holiday spirit. Whenever someone else grumbles or frowns, I’m all ‘We don’t know if there’ll be snow, but have a cup of cheer!’. I find myself purchasing the Family Circles and the Woman’s Day, even though my family consists of a hairy geek and a taciturn overweight cat, and even though I’m 31 years old, I still don’t consider myself a ‘woman’. I’m more of a girl who’s been aged to perfection. But this Christmas, I had perhaps five little stocking stuffers purchased before December 20th and no actual real gifts. I did manage to make about fifty percent of my Holiday cards and send them out, but then apparently the Post Office killed the wax seals on the handmade ones. And I did absolutely zero baking. No cinnamon cashew brittle, no truffles, no schnecken. That’s the true tragedy. No little lovely rolls of schnecken with their pecan hats placed just so. I heart me some schnecken.
Esteban and I did almost all of the Christmas shopping over the weekend, finishing up on Monday. Esteban wrapped everything and I do mean everything. He even accidentally wrapped one of his own gifts and made me feel like a complete tool.
Then I got a grumpy flutter tummy. We did Christmas Eve with Ward and June, but after dinner, I was begging the Gods of Chunder to allow me to throw up without much trouble or exploding the blood vessels in my face. The Gods were not on my side that night and felt I should live with the unpleasant way that the room was spinning and the partially digested grilled pork tenderloin in my stomach was staging a revival of Strictly Ballroom with the pineapple fluff. Thus, I bowed out of the further festivities at the various Esteban relatives’ homes and went home to feel sorry for myself and make the 423rd attempt at getting Buffy out of the Dreamer’s World on my Xbox game. I’ve been stuck there since December 1st. First I couldn’t get past these whizzing saw blade thingies but then I had to jump these three spinning tile thingies and it just wasn’t happening. Then I took a muscle relaxant and went to sleep.
Then I was awoken by the strangest site. It was the shadow of two small figures sitting on the end of my bed. I squinted at them, at their raggedy outlines until they stepped stiffly into the light.
It was my old Donnie & Marie fashion dolls.
‘Weetabix!’ Marie said cheerily, her head permanently bent to the side.
‘Marie?’ I asked incredulously, looking around to see if Esteban had returned home but the other side of the bed was empty. ‘What are you doing here? I thought Mo dropped you down the clothes chute that had no end when I was eight?’
Donnie trembled slightly as if remembering a horror far too terrible to mention. Marie sighed and nodded. ‘She did, she did, Weetabix. And then that house was torn down and we were released from our Lost Toy purgatory thus we’re here to warn you Weetabix. We fear that you’ve lost the magic of Christmas and that it’s gotten lost in a wash of Martha Stewart cookies and Williams & Sonoma catalogs. All of this worrying about Wall Street that you’re doing’. You never used to be this way. I mean, look at you! Your stress has made you sick on Christmas Eve! And to commemorate the hour of our dear Lord’s birth, you played Xbox! That is to shame, Weetabix dear’. To SHAME!’
‘Marie, she’s not listening. Look at her, feeling around for the remote to her TiVo. I told you she’s beyond saving.’
‘Hey! It’s not my fault that Mo dumped you down the clothes chute! And I tried to fish you back out! I constructed that fishing pole out of shoe laces and wire hangers!’
‘Yes, but you also made Marie and I do bad things to each other. Bad things. Bad un-Mormonlike things.’ Donnie moved to place one stiff arm around Marie’s plastic shoulders.
‘Oh’. Oh yeah. Sorry.’
‘Don’t be sorry, Weetabix.’ Marie piped up. ‘If it weren’t for you, I never would have realized that there were so many positions! I mean, seriously, where did you learn all of those? You were 8 and went to religious school!’
‘Uh’ Imaginative, I guess.’
‘Yeah, well, imagine this’ Marie’s now one of Malibu Ken’s bitches. He pimps her out to the entire line of GI Joe dolls in Lost Toy World.’
‘Oh’ I didn’t realize.’
Marie shrugs. ‘It’s a living I guess. But I don’t blame you, Weet. Besides, Donnie, if it weren’t for Weet, you wouldn’t be involved in your long term relationship with the Six Million Dollar Man, and not to mention your very successful alternative entertainment revue.’
Donnie shuffles his purple-socked feet embarrassed. ‘Yeah, I guess you could say that I’m a little bit drag queen, she’s a little bit trashy ‘ho.’
Things got a bit hazy right around then. Something about my Fisher Price Little People now working in a sweat shop sewing clothes for the American Girl and my Sit And Spin being used in a brothel in Singapore. In the end I promised to be good and to only use my toys for good clean fun and they promised that I would receive an extra special treat on Christmas.
The next day, I fired up the Xbox and got through the Dreamer’s World on the first try.
It was a Christmas Miracle.
Donnie and Marie, I believe! I do! God Bless Us’ God Bless Us, Every One.
