December, 2011

Speak Softly and Wear a Loud Shirt

Christmas decorating and gift wrapping tends to fall into a few categories. One: Martha Stewart. Everything is matchy-matchy to the point that you hear Pete Seeger singing "Little Boxes" in your head. A palette of two to four colors repeated on the tree, the decorations, the wrap and ribbons, the décor, the clothing, the food—a little can look nice in an ad or a display, too much is—well, too much. Two: Fibber McGee and Molly. Everything so higgledy-piggledy it looks like it fell out of the closet. A mishmash of decorations, odd bits of wrapping paper from last year (or last decade) (or more), some gifts even wrapped in desperation coverings—cut up marketing bags, funnies from the paper or even aluminum foil. Three: Yours, Mine and Ours. Particularly popular with large families, one person gets wrapping paper A, one person gets B, and so forth. Helpful when you have kids who haven't learned how their name is spelled, or they want to take packages around the room to everyone else and have no idea that Jerome is their obnoxious 9 year old brother; they just know his packages are all in blue paper with snowmen.

We hit all three, to an extent. The tree is definitely Fibber McGee; we have decorations from decades ago, and just keep adding to the stash. The décor and table settings lean toward Martha. But while the gift wrap for everyone else is a mishegoss, anything from Santa is wrapped in Santa-themed paper. Only Santa gets to use Santa paper, and anyone coming to the house knows the rules. (Lexi had gravely informed Ducky that she knew Santa wasn't real. I wasn't there to consult, so he winged it, telling her the history of the Santa legend and that Santa is just the personification of people wanting to do nice things for one another… but don't tell the other kids, and don't tell Auntie Abby. Santa will leave presents every year. Period.)

Christmas in the Mallard household is an all-day affair. Charlie spends Christmas Eve with her maternal grandparents and family, then she and her moms come over to spend the night. It becomes a slumber party free-for-all, with the girls (including Lexi, after she turned two and clued in that she was missing a good time) camped out on the floor of Mother's room. I was worried that Mother would get up in the middle of the night and trip over one of the bodies; Ducky just snorted. "Do you think there's going to be any sleeping going on?" With all the girls in attendance, he pointed out that it there was too much of a ruckus, Santa wouldn't put in an appearance.

"We shall close the doors to the salon!" Mother announced with a decisive nod.

Thus began a family ritual. About 10:00 the French doors are closed, the all-night giggle session (frequently a representative (sometimes two) from NCIS in attendance) begins and Ducky and I set our alarm for 2:30 to sneak all the packages and stocking stuffers into place. Everyone is allowed to open and play with one present before breakfast (mostly to keep people occupied until the rest of the extended family arrives), we sit down to a ton of food, spend the early afternoon flinging paper and ribbon with great abandon while dinner cooks and we go from there.

"Love it!" I waved my copy of The Dracula Tapes at Abby. Where she had scored a Warner edition paperback, with the tacky, cheesy Dracula hiding behind his cape, I don't know. I love the story; she heard me lamenting that I had loaned a copy of the original printing to a friend who accidentally left it at the airport. Alas, that cover was no longer in print; but there is something about it that warms the cockles of my kitsch-loving heart. Face it; it's hard to surprise a bookseller with a book.

I reached for the next gift and stopped. Santa paper—but not any paper I recognized. Yes—it read To: Mommy Sandy From: Santa (we had to differentiate between multiple mothers in the room). Ducky must have snuck it into the pile behind my back. I looked across the crowd and pile of debris to find him holding a similar package and looking at me with a mildly confused look. We subtly pointed to each other in unison, and then shook our heads negatively in unison.

"Oh, another present from Santa!" Charlie was helping Lexi with her pile of goodies. Lexi didn't need help tearing off the paper, but she wasn't too hep on reading names. But the Santa paper she would recognize. It was the same paper wrapping the presents Ducky and I held.

A sweatshirt, bright turquoise with hot pink lettering: "BECAUSE I SAID SO!" Ducky held his up; it was identical. Laughing, Charlie held up Lexi's matching shirt: "BUT WHY?" "And it's a size six, she can wear it for quite a while."

"Always get kids stuff in big sizes," Gibbs said amiably from behind the vintage coffee grinder he was admiring. I cocked my head and gave him a suspicious look, which he returned as a most innocent smile.

"Well—it will save time," Ziva said, turning her giggle into a slight cough. Next to her, McGee and DiNozzo exchanged glances and busied themselves with unwrapping another gift each.

So many suspects…..