The Best Christmas Present

It's tradition that at our Annual Enormous Family Christmas party we have a Chinese auction (or is the correct term now Asian-American auction?) where each of the 20-plus adults brings a white elephant gift, otherwise known as a gently used, no-longer-needed item from home.

After we draw numbers, the first person picks a package, unwraps it, then the person with number two has the option of either snagging the first gift that is now unveiled or picking another gift from the pile. On and on it goes, gifts trading hands and flying back and forth until everyone has opened a gift and is either mentally cherishing their new-found treasure or cursing the fact they ended up with yet another set of authentic Graceland commemorative salad tongs.

The exchange had continued for some time and I hadn't been paying much attention to what was going on because I was happily stroking my Cold Stone gift card when, amidst the chaos, wrapping paper and bows I looked and beheld Andrew standing, in what can only be described as a mid-squat, with two enormous buckskin beaded Native American mittens on his hands doing his tribute to The Village People with a startling rendition of "YMCA."

Utterly confused and wondering where I'd been the last five minutes I stared slack-jawed at my rather talented husband, then at his hand wear, then at his thumping feet. The neurons fired all around my brain, looking for a solution to the visual conundrum before me, when out of the corner of my eye my mother politely waved for my attention. I looked over the heads of numerous squealing children as she mouthed the words, "Do you know what those are?"

I shook my confused head and she continued in a subdued-yet-frantic a manner that my mother has perfected, "Grandma and Grandpa got those gloves when they lived near the Reservation. The Ojibwa handmade those gloves especially for Grandpa. They're real."

As it clicked into my brain that my husband was dancing with the newest and most fabulous family heirloom that's worth more to me than a Village People reunion tour I did the slow motion lunge-and-shriek move to rescue my new prize. It stopped him dead in the middle of his chorus, leaving him confused and mittenless. "Uh-oh" was all across his face as he struggled to understand the situation.

It wasn't really his fault you know, how was he to know that someone would actually bring something wonderful to the gift exchange? The poor man didn't even get to take home his own gift. His wife took his prize--I'm going to have them framed--and he didn't even get the Cold Stone Gift card as a consolation. He's a good sport and he does a great rendition of "Macho Macho Man."

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