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Childhood Family

Santicipation

Note from Mike: This column was first published in 2013. My kids are now both teens and well beyond this stage. But I hope it either still rings true for you, or has a new special meaning for those who maybe didn’t have ones at this stage six years ago. Merry Christmas.

When did you first see him?

It was, I’m pretty sure, 1980 for me.

When I was a kid, Christmas morning was always celebrated in our living room. In my parents’ house the staircase that leads down to the first floor is next to a wall that separates us from our Christmas bounty. The third step was key – no descent past the third step.

That tradition has continued with my family. We have a similar setup, and the third step is my kids’ starting line of awesomeness. When you’re on the third step, you wait in anticipation (Santicipation!) while Mom and Dad make a fire, get the coffee going, whip up some hot chocolate. And you know – YOU JUST KNOW!!! – that something fantastic awaits you on the other side of that wall. He made it to our house. You know he did!

But before Christmas morning arrived and you sat perched on your literal or figurative third step, many of you no doubt set out to see for yourself the Big Man at work.

I have three older sisters, so I have to say that it was pretty amazing that, by the time I was 8, no one had suggested to me that you could not see him at work. I decided I would stay up extra late, even pretending to be asleep if my parents came up to check on me. I made one try to come downstairs and check and see if he was there, but my mother, for some strange reason, was in the living room. (I assumed she, too, was wanting to see him.) She put me back to bed, and I started drifting off. I’d get up in a few, I assured myself.

The next morning, as I sat on the third step, I was absolutely certain I had, in fact, woken up earlier in the evening and seen him. He had been there. I knew it. When my parents let us crash the threshold, and I saw a Millennium Falcon and a Han Solo action figure and who knows what else, it confirmed everything I had thought. I KNEW that was him!

I was talking the other day with some folks who also knew of those who had seen him. Some were certain they had. Others knew people who had. But, rest assured, Santa has been seen doing his work by plenty of folks. Why so many doubters?

My kids are 10 and 13 now. I do not know if they have seen him. I think that’s something you probably keep to yourself, as it’s the most magical secret you can know, and spilling the beans to your old folks might jeopardize that.

But I know this much – I have seen him since 1980. I’ve seen him quite a few times over the past decade. And he does just like you think he does – he shows up in a flash. He fills stockings. He does some last minute toy construction. One time, he even had his elves assemble a trampoline in the backyard at our house. And here’s something I never knew when I snuck down and most certainly saw him in 1980 – Mrs. Claus is always there, and actually does WAY more than he does.

I know my daughter will not come down looking for him this year. She’s 13. And that’s OK. If my son comes looking for him – he’s 10 – this will most likely be the last year for a while.

All of us hit that window where we stop looking for him. But that window opens up again down the road.

I feel confident he’ll be at our house this year. And I have a feeling my son will be in his bed, one last time, plotting his time when he can sneak down and catch him in action. And I hope he sees him.
Because I’ve seen him. Time and time again …

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, you can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike.

 

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A hunting we will go…

I had never been hunting in my life until last weekend.

I have nothing against hunting. I know plenty of folks who do it, and I have often enjoyed what they have brought back. It’s just not my thing.

I spend lots of time in the woods. Not once had I ever ventured out with a gun. But there I was, my dad and me, ready to find our quarry.

My dad is also not a hunter. I am not sure if he has ever been hunting, but I doubt very much if at all. 

As we walked into the swamp where we knew our target resided, shotgun in hand, I turned to my dad and said, “All these people who told us this was the way to get it, do you think they’ve ever actually tried it? I mean, what if it doesn’t work?”

He paused for a moment. “I don’t know…”

You see, our target was mistletoe. We have lots at my folks’ cabin out in the woods, and each year I had told my dad I wanted to bring home mistletoe for Christmas decorations. We had ventured into the swamp many times, easily finding the bright green orbs perched high in the leafless trees of winter. But they were high up on virtually unclimbable trees. We had talked about various ways to get it down. We considered a rope with a weight on the end that we would throw up and snag it. But the height and the terrain limited that. We had considered telling my son that we bet him he couldn’t climb the tree. But his mother and grandmother would most definitely limit that.

Numerous people over the years had said the way to get mistletoe out of a tree was simple: a shotgun. And so there we were, ready to put that advice to work.

But then I started wondering if this was just something people said, or if anyone had actually done it before. Thus we stood at the edge of the swamp pondering out next move.

Only one way to find out.

The swamp we hiked through was thick with underbrush. We tromped here and there, winding around trees and briars, sinking deep into the sphagnum and mud. After about 10 minutes, we spied some high up in a tree. 

We fought through the underbrush and stood at the base of the tree. “I guess we’ll find out,” I said.

Because standing right underneath the mistletoe and shooting straight up would be monumentally stupid, we found a spot of solid land a few yards away where we could aim at an angle. 

My dad loaded a single shell into the shotgun. I asked, “What are you going to aim for?” “The base,” he said with the confidence of a man who had hunted mistletoe a thousand times.

He shouldered the shotgun, aimed to the sky, and fired.

The boom resonated through the swamp, and almost instantly, mistletoe came raining down. We approached the base of the tree and found probably a dozen branches that had come to rest on the ground. Success.

Mistletoe

We found two more batches that added to our haul, and can now safely say that, yes, a shotgun is a perfect way to hunt mistletoe.

After filling a bag with the greenery, we had ample for Christmas decorations (to be used in a 2019-compliant manner only).

It was a great time in the woods, and I look forward to this holiday hunt tradition. After all, this is the type of target I’m wired to hunt.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.

 

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Car talk

I have made no secret over the years that I don’t know much about cars.

I mean, I can do the basics, such as jump start a car or change a flat tire. But when it comes to most things under the hood, beyond refilling wiper fluid, I’m pretty much worthless.

Speaking of wipers, when I replace mine, I ask the folks at the store to install them. While I may be able to figure it out, the story advertises in great big letters that they install wipers, and I don’t want them to feel as if their vinyl letter budget was all for naught.

So it should come as no surprise to you that I do not change by own oil. I am afraid that if I tried to do that the end result would be a chemical spill in my driveway that requires my family to evacuate.

Thus, best left up to the pros.

Recently, the little gauge on my dash popped up that said my oil life was at 10 percent, which I took to mean it’s probably time for an oil change. I’m savvy that way.

I rolled into a shop near my office for a quick change. As I was handing my keys to the guy behind the counter, I mentioned, “Also, that little horseshoe light with the exclamation point…”

“The tire pressure indicator light?” he interrupted.

“Yes.”

Now, a quick sidebar – I did in fact know what the light was for, as it had come on a few weeks prior, and I had checked my tires. I just couldn’t recall its precise name. That said, I had Googled the light and found that plenty of folks had the same issue, and they just lived with having the light on. So my tires were probably fine, but the pesky light just wouldn’t go away.

He told me that they would check the tire pressure, but that they could probably not turn the light off. However, he said after driving it a few miles it would probably go off by itself.

Sure, I thought. 

After about 30 minutes, my car was ready to roll. He told me that they could not, in fact, turn the light off, but assured me that it would most likely go off once I drove it above 25 mph for a few miles. That seemed specific enough to have merit.

It did not have an ounce of merit.

I drove my car well above 25 for well more than a few miles, and the light just shined back at me, gleaming in delight.

My first thought was just to resign myself to having this light on indefinitely, as countless other motorists had clearly done based on my exhaustive research of a single Google search which led me to a single auto repair message board.

But after a few days, I decided this was going to bug me way more than it should. I drove to a dealership and went into the service department. I explained my dilemma, and that the folks at the oil change place had been unable to turn the light off. She said, “Did you push the button on the dash?”

“The what on the where?”

She came out from behind the counter. “Can we go to your car?”

We walked outside together. She opened the driver’s side door and reached down on the left side of the dash and pushed a button that I swear I have never seen. The light  went out. “It’s recalibrated now.”

I said, “That was it?” 

She said, “That was it.”

So the light is now off. And while I still know that I know nearly nothing about cars, at least I now know how to turn that light off. Which is more than apparently most people.

Mike Gibbons was born and raised in Aiken, S.C. A graduate of the University of Alabama, he now lives in Mt. Pleasant. You can e-mail him at scmgibbons@gmail.com or follow him on Twitter @StandardMike or at www.mikeslife.us.