The Gift
I read the story over lunch a few days before Christmas of 2016. Alone, I laughed aloud, as it brought to colourful life in my imagination, a hilarious scenario played out in black on white. A day or so later, I was talking to my son, and I said, "Pete, there's a gift I'd love from you this Christmas." "Oh?" he said, surprised, I suppose, at my unusual boldness in asking. "What is it?" "It's a story," I said, "And the gift would be that you would read it for the rest of the family and me when we all get together for Christmas." He agreed, on condition he might get the story ahead of time to practice. Life being busy, he didn't pick up the story ahead of time. But I had not forgotten, and on Boxing Day, when we all assembled to celebrate what was for some family members, "Christmas--version # 3, at Omi and Grandad's," I kept the bright-yellow-covered book with its coffee-stained pages near at hand