Merry Christmas to all, and to all here's six grapefruit!

As I write this, the Christmas holiday is but a mere week away.
I get teased all the time by my family about two things in particular. The first thing is, they say I'm a horrible hypochondriac. I am not. I am simply in-tune with my body and grow appropriately concerned when there are weird lumps on the back of my neck (“You're probably just growing a second, less ugly head.” “Shut up, Tyler!”). Moreover, hypochondria is not the same as simply being paranoid about getting ill. That's just paranoia. It may be just as serious of a condition, true, but nobody ever teases me about my belief that China is going to eventually hack into our grid and reap havoc on our little liberty-lovin' heads. Nobody ever teases me about no longer using public gym equipment for fear of getting herpes or hepatitis despite vigorously wiping down anything I am about to touch with alcohol. But really, that's neither here nor there, since this is a Christmas-oriented column.
The second thing my family always teases me about is my inability to keep secrets. In my defense, I don't tell negative secrets (Telling negative secrets is different than gossiping. Unfortunately for my character, I am quite good at gossiping... Karma will get me, I'm sure, but I impotently justify it by only gossiping to my mother and my best girlfriend who are already knowledgeable of the fact that I am full of crap and can't site my sources.) Who has cheated on whom and who wears a hairpiece and who texts while he drives... That's all up in the vault never to be spoken of. But good secrets... Good secrets, I have a hard time containing myself. This is especially troublesome at Christmastime because I want to exclaim, “I got you this! Love me!” I'm sure it all stems from my deep-seeded and insatiable neediness for affection and attention.
So, I've gotten a bad reputation when it comes to secret keeping. “You have to pretend to act surprised when you open it, but Bobby-Sue got you a year's supply of yule logs!”
This is especially hard for me, because I don't think I got anybody any stinker presents this year. I think everyone will genuinely like what I got them. Admittedly, it was easier this year because I didn't have so many people to buy for. My brothers plus Brian (my boyfriend) exchanged names instead of doing our usual everybody-gets-everybody-something method (although I will still exchange gifts with Brian). We all agreed at my work that instead of doing gifts this year, we'd go out for dinner after the holidays instead. And my honorary nephew is just a wee one who I could have bought onesies that say things like “Daddy's little tax deduction” and “dinner's on me!” Instead I got him a Magnadoodle, though. Magnadoodles rock! I know from personal experience. Relax. He's not even two. He won't learn how to proficiently read this blog before this Christmas. So, most of the shopping was easy-peasey.
But then there are my parents. My brothers plus Brian decided to all go in together on their gifts for the sake of quality over quantity. My mom and dad are difficult to buy for. So when Troy wanted to pick out the gifts, I was more than happy to leave that pressure on him. Tyler and I gave him the money. Shortly after this decision was made, Padre called. Padre is always really good at getting Christmas information out of me (he is an instigator who picks the Achilles heal of the group!), so he was privy to this information. His response was, “Aw, but Troy never sticks to my wish list!”
Without mentioning this to Troy, we started conversing via email about what gifts to get. I nearly peed my pants with laughter when Troy wrote, “Dad's Christmas list, as usual, is stinking terrible. It's basically a $20 trip to the hardware store.” I don't know if this is a universally hilarious story or not, but it is for me because it's so true. This is Padre's list: Single edge razor blades, a wire cooling rack (he bakes a lot of cakes), peg board, a drill bit, screwdrivers, a can of Fisher's cashews and, sigh, he wants six Ruby Red pink grapefruit. Why six? I do not know. I'm sure he wants more that five because grapefruit are such a rare, holiday commodity.
Hopefully, I can keep my secrets and everybody is happy on Christmas.
Happy holidays, everybody! Be safe and please don't drink and drive. My driving skills are so sub-standard that it is all I can do to avoid collisions with other cards under the best of circumstances.