Presents would be opened Christmas morning after everyone had eaten breakfast. No exceptions. Everyone had to have eaten breakfast. It's the rules. Since I am still a 5 year old somewhere in my fevered brain, I would get up early, eager to open gifts. My brother would get up later than the rest of us. At a certain point I would pound on his door to wake him, though I suspect he was awake but waiting.
But even then we couldn't open gifts because he hadn't eaten. It pissed me off that he would have my mom make him breakfast like he was a 5 year old who didn't know how to cook. Which is ridiculous. So he would have coffee and eggs and toast or some such. And he would chew slowly.
Are you fucking kidding me!?! It's Christmas! There's loot to open!
Eventually we would get to open gifts. All much later than if he didn't intentionally dawdle. He did it on purpose I think because that was the only power he had in the family dynamic.
But this year and last, for various reasons, we opened gifts on Christmas Eve. My mom used to do it that way when she was a kid on the farm she grew up on. Mainly because they had chores in the morning, I think. Cows to tend to and whatnot. So last year we opened the gifts on Christmas Eve for the first time ever. My brother just about had a meltdown. He hadn't wrapped anything, and there was no tree up, and, and, and...
He calmed down and we all exchanged gifts.
But what I secretly think is that he didn't want to lose his leverage over the rest of us. He could no longer keep us waiting by having a leisurely breakfast. i.e. Hold Christmas hostage to his timeline. We didn't have to wait for him.
I kind of like the opening of presents on the night before. And I really like not having Christmas being held hostage by my brother.
1 comment:
wow. I was just about to say "How childish" but then I remembered that I know several children who would never be so manipulative and selfish.
That must have been absolutely delicious to see him unravel.
I forget that you have a family-of-origin. I think of you as a pod person like me.
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