Hey, how are you? Were your holidays okay? Everything alright on your end? Great. I’m glad. Or I’m sorry. Or, possibly, I’m sorry, but I’m glad things turned out okay.
My parents got me a body pillow and I’ve never laughed harder in my life.
My Christmas was good, thank you for asking. Like the last couple years, not all of us could be together. Unlike the last couple years, this wasn’t due to Covid. We have a loophole in our family’s unspoken social contract that if you have any health-related reason to skip, you play that card like it’s got the antidote. To be fair, the person who missed was injured. Legitimate. But they’re fine. More than fine - they got to skip Christmas! The greatest Christmast gift of all!
However, for the first time in a couple of years, I was home with my parents in Florida. Thankfully, due to the weather system that made everyone’s traveling plans easy, the temperature in Florida was in the low 40s. You remember that scene in Home Alone 2 in which the family inexplicably travels to Florida for Christmas (after Paris didn’t work out… they tried Hialeah?) and it keeps raining? Same here, but low 40s.
An actual body pillow. They got me a body pillow.
Skipping to the part you care about, Christmas is a big event in my family. Thanksgiving was never particularly important when I was growing up, so Christmas became both holidays smashed together - food, gifts, and all. We all put in an effort. When we were kids, we were told to clean the house before any company came over. Now that we’re adults, we’re asked with a heavy cloud of guilt to clean the house before any company comes over.
Every year, my parents get their kids at least one insanely weird gift. These aren’t ever intended to be mean or frustrating. My parents, with good faith and full hearts, find gifts they don’t perceive as weird. They might be creative or funny or cute, but not weird. Usually, by chance, these gifts often happen to be large in size. All three of my parents’ kids live in apartments in major metropolitan areas. None of us have a lot of space in our homes. This is something we’ve gently tried to mention while still being grateful for their effort. To be clear: We are grateful. We just also happen to be wary.
Listing the gifts feels a little immature, but one example that might help illustrate would be the year I got a three-foot-tall tyrannosaur statue. It makes sense to give me one. I love dinosaurs. I love decorating my spaces with items that make me utterly unfuckable. The gift tracks. But it was still a three-foot-tall dinosaur statue. I’m grateful for it. It brought a smile to my face. But lord, it was a three-foot-tall dinosaur statue. Made of metal.
Anyway, body pillow.
Right, so this year, on the side of the tree, there’s a giant, soft, cylindrical-shaped present with a tag for me. At this point, I’m guessing this might be a strange gift. But I don’t know! Strange gifts and unexpected gifts exist in a quantum universe of possibly amazing and possibly baffling. All gifts are one under Schrödinger’s Christmas tree.
I should also say that we all open gifts one at a time in my family. I don’t know how your trash relatives do it. None of that everyone-tearing-it-all-apart-at-once nonsense. At the best of times, it allows each person to both savor their gift while giving the gift-giver the chance to enjoy seeing it opened. At the worst of times, there’s a minute of silence before the phrase, “What is it?”
So my family watches me as I unwrap this gift. Under the paper is what I think might be a rolled-up blanket or sleeping bag. “Oh, hey! It’s a blanket or sleeping bag!” I probably said in one way or another. “No, no, open it up!” said my folks. “Alright then!” I might have said. I probably just kept opening the thing, eager to see what Ripley’s Believe It or Not result would come out of that cushiony tube.
And initially, I still thought it was a blanket. The outer layer of material was blanket-like. It was completely black. I figured that my parents had purchased some sort of blanket that one of their friends had that does something nice like heat up and whatnot. This, too, would’ve still ranked in the category of “unexpected” rather than “weird.”
The weird was under the first layer. The weird was a giant - and I mean giant - pillow case with video game controllers on it. I hadn’t even completely unraveled it before one of my parents said, “It’s a pillow!” Over the next five to seven seconds, my brain pieced together a The Usual Suspects-style connection. There was a corkboard in my brain with yarn going from point to point. This was a giant body pillow with video game controllers on it. My parents had bought me a video game-themed body pillow.
“You can put it out when you have people over!”
I laughed. And then I laughed harder. And then I broke.
I couldn’t breathe. I kept laughing. I kept trying to get the words, “This is ridiculous” out. That’s all I wanted to say. “This is ridiculous.” I couldn’t speak. I couldn’t breathe. I was choking between trying to describe what was in front of me and laughing and taking in any available oxygen. My lungs hurt. Tears ran down my face. I broke like the Joker. I broke like an H.P. Lovecraft character faced with an ancient god whose form defies description.
It was the laugh of madness. Everyone else was laughing, but also clearly checking in with one another about what was happening. I’m sure to them this felt like the prelude to me screaming and running out the door, never to be heard from again save rumors on social media. I couldn’t stop. I could not stop. I just laughed. I howled. I died.
I laughed thinking about the insanity of owning a video game body pillow.
I laughed thinking about the idea of having it out on my couch.
I laughed thinking that I’m 38 and my central “thing” to people is video games, which is not untrue.
I laughed thinking about my parents finding a video game-themed body pillow and exchanging the same glance they shared when they made their cursed children.
I laughed thinking that whoever made this pillow one hundred percent thought it was for a child.
I laughed thinking about how much I actually kind of liked it.
Someone in my family - my parents, my brother, my sister, somebody - told me to open it up all the way. They wanted to see the whole thing. So I unfurled it. And between the video game controllers were the words - in big ‘80s arcade lettering - “Game Over.”
And under those words was the name “Daniel.”
I laughed even harder than before.
This gift was for my brother, who himself immediately stopped laughing. For my part, I wasn’t relieved or glad or disappointed (a blender of emotions) because my family had played this custom gift game before.
There was another cylinder covered in wrapping paper behind the tree with my brother’s name on it. And we all knew what was inside.
This may be my favorite Christmas story of all time! 😂
This is an A+ story. So many twists and fun moments in such a short time. Thank you, Daniel.