Christmas surprize, not!

I already know what one of my Christmas gifts is. This one comes from Bill. It actually arrived here about a week ago from LL Bean. I brought it in the house and stuck the box under the Christmas tree, figuring Bill would see it. He did but just left the shipping box under the tree for a couple of days.

Finally Thursday morning when he looked inside, he learned that LL Bean had sent him the wrong size and color. That disordered his mind, and that's when I learned that the gift was actually for me. He was concerned because he hadn't looked to find the mistake earlier, so he was sure that my real gift would arrive after Christmas. I told him that was okay.

Later, while coming into the house with the newspapers, I could hear Bill in the bedroom on the phone, talking about the goosedown vest which had come in the wrong size and wrong color. I think he was aware that I heard but we both pretended that I hadn't. He did tell me that LL Bean would be shipping out the correct gift and that with any luck, it might even arrive before Christmas after all.

While at work, he told his friends about the guaranteed arrival of the gift. They reminded him that Denver Airport was closed. His hopes sank but all for naught. Friday evening after we returned from Slate's, Bill looked around for a possible Fed Ex deposit. No dice. Two minutes later, however, the Fed Ex lady drove into the driveway and handed him the package from LL Bean. The gift from Freeport, Maine, came through.

I now know that tomorrow morning I'll act pleasantly surprised as I open the box and pull out my new LL Bean goosedown vest of correct color and size. And, Bill knows I'll be faking the surprise, but that's okay. It's all part of the Christmas dynamic.

As children, we used to put on some pretty good shows in the living room at our North Boyer home. It could have been early adolescence when our Christmas Eve acting debuts began. By that time, someone in our family had become a Santa skeptic and passed along the realization, by explaining his siblings how easy it is to open those gifts and tape them back up so as not to arouse any parental attention.

"You're getting a camera," one brother announced to me a few days before Christmas. I think that was the year my newfangled "Instamatic" replaced the Kodak Brownie camera from a few years earlier. The Kodak Brownie definitely came from Santa, and I still have it, even though my mother tried to sell it down at Foster's Crossing. I'll tell the results later.

I couldn't believe that I was going to get an Instamatic. I was thrilled but also skeptical that my brother was really telling me the truth.

"How do you know?" I asked.

"I've seen it," he said.

"When did you see it?"

"It's under the tree," he said. About that time, said older brother showed me the intricacies of carefully loosening the tape from the wrap, pulling open one end of the gift and peeking inside. Sure enough, inside that twice-already opened gift was my turquoise and white Instamatic camera. I couldn't wait to open it the third time, but somehow I managed.

And, that Christmas Eve, when I did rip open the package, I pulled off an academy award-winning Christmas Eve performance of genuine astonishment and gratitude. I don't remember exactly how it was scripted, but I do know that Mother and Harold were definitely pleased that their order to Santa for Marianne's special Christmas gift had been the perfect gift.

For years afterward, as teenagers, we perfected our skills in providing ourselves with the pre-Christmas surprises. Gifts were deposited under the tree, and within 24 hours when parents were not around, of course, gifts got the once over, followed by a careful rewrap. I think we sometimes needed to get some more scotch tape to avoid suspicion. Every Christmas Eve, our anticlimactic gift opening was overshadowed by improved acting skills as we demonstrated genuine surprise at the special gifts our parents had bestowed on us.

Finally, as a young adult, I reached a point where knowing in advance just wasn't all that fun anymore. Until this week, for my entire adult life, I've had no idea what treasures lay hidden inside those packages under the tree. And, I think I prefer delaying Christmas gratification much more than those teen years of spoiling our surprises, even though we did learn how to act.

As for the LL Bean vest of proper size and color, just knowing how much it meant to Bill that the present got here on time overshadows any letdown that might come from an unplanned early surprise. I'll wear it with pride and always remember that Santa and LL Bean make every effort to do the job right.

P.S. As for that Kodak Brownie camera, fate would have it that about ten years ago, I stopped by to visit my mother one day when she was working at the Country Loft in Foster's Crossing. While she was busy with a customer, I strolled around the store, looking at the offerings of antiques for sale. Upon coming to an old wash tub filled with assorted nostalgic items , I looked straight down and zeroed in on my camera. It had a pricetag of $10.

I picked it up and marched back to the counter where Mother had finished with the customer.

"What's this?" I said. "This is my camera that you gave me for Christmas when I was about ten. Why are you selling it? If you need the money, I'll give you ten dollars and buy it back from you." My mother was, indeed, embarrassed and unable to give me a plausible answer.

"Oh, do you still want that?" she said. "I figured you didn't want it anymore."

I did want the camera, and she generously told me I could have it back for free. So, it has stayed with me to this day, and my mother always gets a bit squeamish whenever I bring up the subject.

If only she knew about those pre-opened presents and all those Christmases when her little darlings pulled off all those juvenile fake expressions of surprise, I doubt that she'd feel quite so bad about her attempted Brownie sale.