Friday, December 01, 2006

He Sees You When You're Sleeping, He Knows When You're Awake

Well, I think that the time is right, with Christmas coming and all, to tell the world the story of Santa Bell. Santa Bell came into the life of our family in the long-ago Christmas of 1999. Ian and I had just gotten married, we were full of youthful enthusiasm and belief in the goodness of the world around us. Santa Bell changed all that. He was originally a gift for my dad, from a relative who shall remain anonymous for the sake of his or her own guilty conscience. It was unanimously agreed by all parties present that Santa Bell was an undesirable and somewhat strange gift. Mysteriously, my dad 'forgot' Santa Bell when he left that evening. During their next visit, I insisted that my parents do their duty and remove Santa Bell from my home. They pretended to capitulate and take him, but secretly left him on my front doorstep when they left my house. Since then, we have taken turns hiding him at one another's houses. This has become more challenging as the game has gone on. Santa Bell has been baked into a cake, buried in a flowerpot, and most recently, he sent me a series of emails from Canada (while my parents were there), complete with pictures of him in familiar Canadian locales. Currently, Santa Bell is in my possession, but not for long. All of this is just proof of a fundamental truth of our family -- some families like to use the holidays to be together and do good deeds. We like to go to great and inexplicable lengths to bother each other.

2 comments:

Ian said...

And Bob and Eileen, you are going to be enjoying some 'bell in the near future...believe it!

Anonymous said...

Santa Bell antagonists may just get coal in their stockings. Just so you know..we have installed security cameras around our house and a bell detecter at the front door.