It’s 2000! Almost!!!!!
It’s Christmas 1999. Seven years old, sprawled out on the “shoes off, no food allowed” carpet in the living room—an unwritten family rule embedded in the beige fibers beneath me.
Even the dog, tail wagging hesitantly at the carpet’s edge, knows better than to cross.
Poor thing, she’d love nothing more than to flop down beside me, fluffy head on my lap.
But the line is drawn:
people on one side, pets on the other.
So, instead, I have a yellow legal pad next to me.
The TV before me does have a depth of 3 feet but does not have a guide.
Fairly certain the remote had up and down buttons for volume and channels.
That’s it.
If I catch the newspaper before it’s recycled, maybe I can see the TV guide posted for the evening.
Click, click, moving through channels without any real plan. I vaguely remember a claymation show from the year prior but never figured out the name. Maybe I’ll find “A Year without Santa Claus” by chance, or “Frosty the Snowman,” or something I’ve never seen before but love at first sight.
That’s how it worked back then: you stumbled onto holiday cheer rather than scheduling it.
Yellow legal pad, lines waiting to be filled.
Red pencil, green pencil, red pencil, green pencil—I need to alternate colors.
I have an objective this evening: start listing out Christmas wishes inspired by my favorite commercials.
I need to remind myself not to get caught up like I did last year on the dang Hot Wheels.
Some friggin Hot wheels set where, in the commercial, they hit all sorts of insane jumps and terrains; it took owning it to realize I’d been bamboozled.
Mental note on the ceiling of fun for toys.
I need to keep PlayStation games to a minimum. I’ve been told.
But my cousin John will help with decisions there. Crash Bandicoot, Spyro, NHL ’99, Tiger Woods PGA Tour...
Clicking through channels, holiday commercials became part of the festive tapestry. They painted my world in candy-cane stripes, just like my alternating red-and-green Christmas list. Polar Bears on Coke, "He does exist!” M&Ms guys, the Pillsbury Doughboy would giggle. I’d grin stupidly at the screen.
They were sales pitches dressed up in tinsel. Sure. But... they brought something spontaneous, something sometimes stupid, but real. They shook my snowglobe head, reminding me that Christmas was on its way. Commercials made the holidays feel like they were dripping through the cracks of the screen onto my everyday life, slipping into my routine. Just maybe, I’d discover something new worth scribbling onto that legal pad. After all, computers, robots, the future and stuff! It's about to be Y2k!
What kind of kid do I want to be next year? In this new world.
Will I still be into basketball? Do I still have a shot of being The Answer?
How many Crazy Bones is too many Crazy Bones?
If I get Pokemon Red and Joe gets Blue, we can trade Pokemon I hear.
Speaking of which, I need a night light for my Gameboy.
I hope Santa can pick & choose an ecelectic assortment of gifts and not all ps1 games.
I'm not sure what budget he is working on.
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