Christmas Fruits

Around Christmas time you hear most people call out ‘Merry Christmas’ to each other. We do that too, when we’re outside. In the house, we constantly keep reminding each other to act natural and look inconspicuous, like we have nothing to hide. That’s because we have a seriously shrewd mother. And surprising our mom with Christmas gifts is hard.

As children she always hid our Christmas holiday gifts and we didn’t know until Christmas day what we were going to get. If anyone was lucky, they’d have a faint idea of one gift but that’s the closest we ever got. And our Christmas gifts were always great. Mom not only knew what we wanted, but she also managed to smuggle it in the house and wrap it with out us so much as seeing the corner of a box. So when we grew up and started college or jobs, we thought it was only fair we get the world’s best most unique Christmas gifts for mom, and not let her find out about them till Christmas day. Oh yeah, I’m talking major payback time for mommy. So while we plan, purchase and wrap mom’s Christmas gifts, we try to be as subtle as possible.

But mom knows, mom always knows. We’ve tried all sorts of headquarters for our ‘Surprise Mom on Christmas’ plan, our house, my sister’s apartment, my brother’s place, my place, the beach, the bar. Sometimes I think mom must at some point have worked for the FBI. Luck and common sense aren’t exactly on our side either. Last year we ordered some Christmas gift baskets and one of them was for mom. There was a mix up and they delivered it to our house instead of my place. So basically mom received the delivery of her own Christmas gift. She still acted surprise though. The year before that, my brother called my dad and left him a long message on the answering machine. The message was entirely about mom’s Christmas gifts. He conveniently forgot that our parents live in the same house. Mom heard the message before dad did. In the years before that, mom has one way or the other managed to stumble upon our Christmas gifts for her. The sad part is she doesn’t even try to find out what her Christmas gifts are and she still finds them. We are lame at keeping Christmas gifts a secret. So this year, my mom already knows about the necklace my sister is getting for her and the coat my brother got for her. I’m getting her a fruit bouquet that I ordered online. Mom doesn’t know about it yet, I think It doesn’t need to be wrapped and it will arrive a day before Christmas. I change the password on my computer every day now. I hope I can keep it a secret from my mom till Christmas.