Halloween kicks off the holiday season for me. That’s when I steal the kids’ trick or treat candy and use it later for the Christmas stockings. Thanksgiving follows with this year’s turkey being thinner than a Kim Dawson model, an emaciated bird that took about 18 minutes to cook. Being a stockbroker these days, we do what we can. We solved the turkey problem by wrapping pieces of lunch meat around the bones and poking toothpicks through them. At that point, Christmas could take its time.
Recently, a nice commission check came in. When it cleared, I suddenly got in the spirit by going out for some spirits. Ho! Ho! Ho! Until I came home to a disapproving fiancée.
A rock n’ roll Christmas: I got a Monkees album but there was no record in it. Someone had taken it out earlier and had left it on the record player.
A poignant Christmas: I sat my then small children with me on the couch and I told them that I had the best two kids in the whole world. My son teared up. “Who are they, dad, who are they!” At that point, I started to wonder.
An “Is my son Gay?” Christmas: When I was four, I asked for a Kenner E-Z bake oven. My dad shook his head. The next year, I asked for a GI Joe doll, with outfits. He began to drink. The next year, he was happy to see that I got Walkie Talkies. I taped the “Talk” button down and slipped one into their bedroom. When the lights went out, I banged on their door and said, “Dad, quit makin’ mom scream!” “I’m okay, honey,” my mom said through the Walkie Talkie. “Merry Christmas,” she said happily.
A favorite Christmas: When I was 15, my dad and I broke down in his van with all the presents late on Christmas Eve, 75 miles from home. A neon sign flashed, “Bar Open.” “It’s a Manger!” the old man whispered, then leaped from the van. “You stay here and guard the presents.” After a couple of belts, he came back. “You go in now, I’ll watch ‘em.” I ordered a Jack Daniels and Dr. Pepper. Straight up. Yum. A lonely, older woman asked me if I wanted to go home with her. “Nah, my mom’s on her way,” I said. I had it, then, too.
Around midnight, we got the gifts under the tree. Now it was time to deliver Donna, this cute girl we liked, her present. She wanted a car for Christmas so my buddy and I gave her a 1962 Chevy, no engine, seats or transmission. We towed it over and put it in her yard. “Merry Christmas,” we wrote in shoe polish. Surely, one of us would end up with her for this. When her amused but hung over daddy called us that morning to come and remove the car, we drove up to find her kissing some new guy. “We give that bitch what she wants and she does this to us!,” my friend moaned. The cute girl grinned and said, “These are my silly friends. Y’all, this is my boyfriend!”
Ah, well, this Christmas, I finally got the right girl. Without giving her a car!
Rick Larson, the Alumni Guy, is a 1981 graduate of SMU as well as a member Phi Gamma Delta fraternity. He has been a stockbroker/investment banker for 26 years. He can be reached for comment at [email protected]
