Nostalgic Moments of Christmas #12

For fun, I'm going to post one of my most favorite Christmas memories randomly from now until Christmas. I've been becoming quite Scrooge as of late and I need something to put me in the holiday spirit. Most of these will be funny, but a few may or may not be sentimental. There may be 12 of them or not.... I don't know and I really don't know the pattern. Heck, I might post 2 or 3 in a day, but that's unlikely. I'll probably post something in between a memory, like a contest or a writing update or a rant about something. The point is... I don't have a point to this other than creating the Christmas mood on my blog. And here we go...

#12 - I've blogged about this before, so for those stalwart followers of my website, this will be a repeat post. But for you others (recent joinees and random looker-inners) this will be a treat.


It was Christmas eve 2001. Heidi and I stayed the night with her family and slept on the couch with her brothers and sister as we eagerly awaited the arrival of Christmas morning. Heidi was pregnant with my first son, Jackson, and on the verge of popping (he arrived in February.) We had spent the evening playing games and watching movies, and if I recall correctly, I had fallen asleep in the middle of the movie on the couch. It was warm and peaceful and I dreamed of sugar plums (which by-the-way I've never had one, but they sound exquisite.) 


Soon, all of us older kids were nestled snug on the enormous family room couch, snoozing. Suddenly, sometime past midnight, my dreams of sugar plums changed into a horrifying spectacle. There I sat in a warehouse in front of a bay door with Heidi sitting next to me holding our son. Although, I can't remember exactly what he looked like, I'll wager Jackson looked a little like a baby Bob Costas in my dream (that's for you cousin John). When all of a sudden, a tractor-trailer began to back towards us. Why we were sitting there, I have no clue. And why we didn't move when the reverse beep of the truck sounded off, baffles me. It was a dream, people. Needless to say, we were in trouble. The truck continued to back and we sat frozen to the floor. I knew I needed to do some drastic, so I sat straight up and shouted at the top of my lungs.


"HEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!"


Meanwhile, in ma and pa Hickok's basement, the scene unfolded in real life. Their downstairs doesn't have any windows and the room was cloaked in total darkness. I must have shouted for a solid minute. Everyone woke up, disturbed, confused, and wondering why I was still shouting.


Keri, my sister-in-law, took the startling wake-up call the worst and I remember hearing her desperately ask Heidi what the heck I was doing. My mind still hovered somewhere in between the dream world and reality, but I managed to shout, in my best Gollum impersonation,


"My Precioussssssssss."


To which Keri started bawling.


Feliz Navidad!

The Christmas Gifts I Never Got

Now before I write this, I'm going to include a disclaimer, Santa, my parents and my wife have always given me a great Christmas. There were tons of gifts, but a few of the items on my list have slipped through the cracks. Here they are in no particular order:

1. Mickey Mouse phone-thingy - I remember being a young kid and realizing that this was a toy designed for much younger kids, but still oh how I wanted it. The commercials made me imagine that at any time I could call Mickey Mouse, he would answer and the conversation would always be new and unique. Alas, it was never meant to be.

2. Easy Bake Oven - I still want one of these. Who wouldn't want a tiny little oven that makes wonderful hand-sized cakes? I could rest it on the little table by my bed and bake cakes whenever I get the urge.

3. Rambo Knife - I remember when my cousin (I guess he's a cousin) got one in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. It was razor sharp, perfect for any necessary violence that every eight-year-old encounters on a daily basis. It also had a compass on one end and when you unscrewed it, waterproof matches fell out. Did you hear that? Waterproof matches! And a metal string that could be used as a saw! Why Santa chose to ignore this highly-desired request, I'll never know.

4. Glass bowl filled with the little bath oil balls - I used to steal these out of my Mamaw's bathroom and hide them and then pop them. They were glorious! I guess this isn't exactly fair, because I never formally asked for them because they were somewhat girly.

5. A Calculator Watch - I had so many friends that owned this very practical accessory. There were innumerable instances in my life where not only did I need a watch to tell time, but I also needed a device that could solve a difficult mathematical equation. This gift would've saved me time and time again.

6. A Water Weenie - I was your typical dorky boy that would hang out in the cool magic shops in the mall whenever I was able. Sure a water weenie is considered a cheap impulse buy, but boy was I fascinated by how it seemed to move and slip through my fingers as if it had a life of its own.

7. Mortimer Icabod Marker - "Picture pages, picture pages, time to get your picture pages, time to get your crayons and your pencils. Picture pages, picture pages, open up your picture pages, time to watch Bill Cosby do a picture page with you." I actually just got choked up a little. Bill Cosby had an amazing pen that looked like a red bee that made space-aged sounds whenever he dragged it across the page. I actually had the Picture Pages that coincided with the weekly show and would do them religiously, but I never got the Mortimer Icabod Marker.

8. Lava Lamp - I really wanted a lava lamp. That's all I can think to say about that.

9. Nike Pump High Top Shoes - My shoes were just dull. I would actually ask my friends that owned a pair of these cool shoes if I could play with the little orange, basketball bladder that was used to pump air around the laces. I would sit there, leaning down from my desk in school and would inflate and deflate someone else's shoes... Oh boy, (sigh) I was a loser.

10. A lunch pail plucked from off the Lunch Pail Tree in the movie Return to Oz - OK, this never existed, but I really wanted one. There was something about the sound the lunch pail made when Dorothy opened the lid (like the sound a pumpkin makes when you carve out the top,) it was amazing. Oh, and the movie? Yeah, it pretty much gave me nightmares until my junior year of high school. Disturbing.

HALLOWEEN!

Halloween is just around the corner and I must say that it is one of my most absolute favoritist holidays, along with Christmas, Turkey Day, Easter, Fourth of July, Arbor Day and my Birthday (April 23 in case you wondering, and if you already knew than you most certainly forgot!)

Anyway... There's just something about the mystery/horror of all the creepy things that go on Halloween night. Little angels dress up like demons, people who rarely eat apples go bobbing up and down in lugey infested water for them, we fill our stereos, CD players, Ipods with cycling music of people moaning and screaming, we mangle pumpkins and burn them and if we're lucky some sweet children smash them for us, we drink punch from fog-filled bowls, we invite the wall-knocker out of the wall to have a little one on one time with the wife (maybe just me), we shell out $20 a head for ridiculous haunted forests ran by college kids/prison inmates/ mental patients, we run around corn mazes for hours screaming and swearing and eating corn, and of course we drag our kids around (often in strollers) door to door to complete strangers and pan handle for candy. What a day! I love being scared, I love the mystery of the unknown, I love hiding in piles of leaves and sending teenagers careening into the street.

Do you love Halloween too?

If you could feasibly go trick or treating on this Halloween night with out triggering a statewide manhunt what would you go as?

By the way, the picture has nothing to do with Halloween, rather it was a really sad Christmas gift us Cole kids got when we were little. Yep, it's a box. Thanks Santa!