Of Bears and Penguins

Infallible Logic
Then there was the Christmas that Mom wanted to decorate two trees, one upstairs and one downstairs. We were living in Houston, and I was probably four or five.
"Do you want to decorate a tree upstairs too?" my Mother asked me.

And the wheels started turning for me. If, according to previous experience, presents appeared under the tree on Christmas morning, then would not two trees yield two sets of presents?

"Yes," I said, picturing two present-unwrapping-extravaganzas on that merry morn. "We should decorate two trees."

It was a slightly disappointing Christmas, when checking first the tree upstairs, I found not the packages I expected, but just some lint and tinsel under the tree.

This was my first inclination that 1+1 might not always equal the anticipated result. Perhaps this is the beginning of my loathesome relationship with mathematics.

Tradition
Each year as we near the end of the unwrapping, my Mom gets a slightly puzzled look on her face.

"Hmm...Now you should have had one more something," she says as she hops up to look in her usual hiding places.

Off to her bedroom to check under her bed, back to the guest room to check the closet, her nightgown and slippers swishing with a sense of urgency. She invariably returns, only to say, "Well, you did have something else, but I can't remember where I hid it."

This year she really topped herself. She lost a present she bought for herself.
"Where do you hide a present from yourself?" my Dad asked increduously.
"I don't know" she said.

We shook our heads and started to laugh. That great Alsup laugh that I happen to think is one of our better traits. We laughed until tears ran down our faces. How do you manage to lose something that you bought yourself?

It was the greatest of all Mom-loses-a-Christmas-present moments.

Anyone, Anyone?
Today I was forced out of bed at 8:30 because my dog, Pepe, was frantic to have Christmas. Yes, we get him presents. And I promise you, this dog knows Christmas. He knows that we will let him outside, and place his presents in his chair. (Yes his chair. It's a wing-back red leather number that no one ever sat until Pepe appropriated it for his own purposes.)

Come on, I know there have got to be other people that give their pets presents.

I have never seen an animal like to get presents more than that dog. Pepe is a character, and that's probably a good thing, because being a character with plenty of quirks and eccentricities is the only sure way to fit into my family.