On the morning of Christmas Eve 1996, I left Kelz in the motel so I could spend part of the day with Dad. Kelz called Mom at some point and told her she was ready to be picked up. Unbeknownst to me, my brother Loyd was at Mom's and she asked him to go get Kelz. Really, this wasn't how I wanted Kelz to meet Loyd, but I didn't have any control over it. He knocked on the door. She asked who it was. He said, "This is Loyd!" Because Loyd and I have similar-sounding voices, she thought it was me goofing around. She was surprised to see that it was someone else at the door.
I hung out with Dad most of the day. I don't remember too much of what happened. The plan called for me to spend the evening at Mom's and unwrapping presents. It was fun to watch my cousins open up their gifts. One of the great things was that the gift I gave to Aunt Cind and her family was the largest package there! I'd never gotten to do that before.
When they opened the box, I saw a piece of paper stuck to the cardboard that held the poster in place. I pulled it off and looked at it. Cind asked if it was for me. It was an invoice that detailed the cost of the shipping. I said, "Yes, this is for me."
According to the invoice, Chud and Elad had to pay $60 to ship the poster to me! I felt really bad because I had no idea it was going to cost that much, especially since I thought they were going to roll it up in a tube and send it. The invoice detailed the cost of the box and protecting the poster and the cost of the shipping. I knew right away that I would need to pay them back. That was a lot of money! And here I thought I had scored a really cheap gift for my relatives. That was more than twice as much as I spent on all the other presents.
But the bright side is that Aunt Cind and her family took the poster, had it framed and displayed it in their living room for several years. So it was totally worth paying the $60. The bad thing was that I had to wait a couple of months to pay Chud and Elad back. I didn't talk to them until I got that taken care of.
I know I got Kelz something for Christmas to unwrap, but I can't remember what it was. I do remember she didn't get me anything. (But I wasn't expecting it.)
After all the presents had been unwrapped, we started picking up the wrapping paper and ribbons to throw away. I asked Kelz if she was ready to go. "WHY DO WE HAVE TO LEAVE RIGHT NOW?" Everybody stopped what they were doing. "FINE! LET'S GO!"
I know that at the time, Loyd was thinking, "Good. I'm not the one to ruin Christmas this year." In discussions with the other family members after the fact, it was generally felt that everybody was about to go to bed at that point. Kelz and I would have been leaving around the same time anyway. So they had no idea why she had to cause a big fuss about it. I didn't, either. Was she really having that good a time? I don't know.
Kelz griped during the drive back to the motel. She eventually calmed down and we were able to go to bed.
I split Christmas day between Mom's and Dad's houses. While I was at Mom's, Aunt Mard called and got to talk to everyone at the house. I didn't spend a lot of time on the phone with her.
There was nothing else eventful for Christmas that year. Kelz was actually pleasant throughout the day.
Kelz and I went somewhere else the next day. That will be the topic of tomorrow's post.
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