The paper was red and white. I remember that.
It was doing a poor job of masking the contents of that box. I knew what was inside. Instinctively, I knew. Only one item could be so important as to require the participation of both of my parents. Only one item had the requisite weight distribution and symmetry that box had. There was only one thing I wanted that was so volumous, only one thing I had been trying to convince Santa/my parents to bring me that fit the package's physical description.
I was nine.
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I used to pour through Service Merchandise catalogs looking for one, stopping to ogle and check prices. I used to count the money in my piggy bank and pour over my bankbooks to see if it was something I could buy. I used to calculate how much of my allowance would need to be saved over what period of time to afford it. The number changed every time. And here it was, in the box, wrapped in all the red and white tessellations of tiny Christmas trees.
It was a television, a new one - nothing special, the cheapest model available; no picture-in-picture, no buttons to press, no remote. You had to get up and switch the dial if you wanted to change from UHF to VHF stations. But it was mine - there, in the box in front of me, waiting for someone to liberate it.
I wasn't used to Christmases like this. There were a number of changes that Christmas, though.
For years, we used to go to the YWCA and find a tree among the Douglas firs bound and cut in rows. It wasn't quite as romantic as the time we tried driving to the country to cut the perfect tree. But it also was less painful than trudging through the snow with small children for a few hours. In the tree lots, we could always find a tree to agree on, and it was always real - prepackaged or not. There always was a certain mystery to the Christmas tree.
But that year, the tree wasn't real. It didn't require water. It was assembled, color-coded and stored in our basement. My mother didn't think she could handle a real tree on her own and felt that it might be easier to purchase a reusable one and save money. No one would need to set it up and adjust the height and haul it out to the trash when it began to lose needles.
That was good, because no one was around to do so.
One afternoon I returned from a summer day camp to the news my parents had decided to separate. They hadn't officially divorced yet. They actually would wait until the following year, but my father moved out that summer. My mother, sister and I lived together in the house I grew up in. My mother was going to school and working to support us, so it was often my grandmother who fixed us dinner. When my mom got home from school, dinner would be waiting for her, also.
I usually was in bed by that point.
I remember all of the stuff piling up on our dining room table. It got to the point where the addition of one item would cause another to fall off. Much of the stuff on the table was bills, accumulating in some cases for as many as 18 months before receiving attention.
My father leased a single-bedroom apartment across from the high school in my hometown just north of Detroit. He would cook for my sister and I when we went to visit him Thursday nights and Fridays or Saturdays - depending on the week. Dinners were usually tuna-noodle casserole or polish sausage and macaroni. Dad would tell us that everything would be fine, and I would always tell him I knew that, even though I wasn't really certain.
My sister and I slept in cots at the apartment. We used old army blankets for sheets.
There is a dirty business in the wake of separation. One day, dad came over to the house to reclaim his furniture - the dining room table and a couch - leaving the house mostly empty. Life somehow seemed that way, too - like a house full of people without a couch to rest on.
I remember that Christmas, because my parents were trying to win my affection.
It was tradition that we celebrated Christmas Eve at my aunt and uncle's house - my dad's brother. It was the first Christmas Eve in memory at their house where mom wasn't present.
I got a Nintendo - the old 8-bit set. I remember playing "Super Mario Brothers" and "Duck Hunt" with my cousins before going back to dad's apartment. We spent the night at his place, then drove home early Christmas morning. I left the Nintendo at dad's.
When I returned home, there was another Nintendo waiting under the tree. It was a different one - from my mother. I paid less attention to it because it had lost its novelty.
There also was the box with the Christmas tree wrappings - the television.
I used to stay up late Fridays and watch "The Tonight Show" with Johnny Carson, back when it was still funny. I remember doing his characteristic golf swing around the house and humming the theme song. I watched cartoons on that TV, and other programs. Whenever something came on the downstairs TV I didn't like, I always could run upstairs to my room and watch whatever I wanted. I could fall asleep, in the comfort of my bed, watching TV. It was mine.
But despite the comfort such an appliance could bring, I didn't hide in my room and watch TV very often. And despite the fact that we now had two Nintendos in two different households, I didn't play video games that much, either. I think I learned early what I know now; TV is just an escape.
And when you turn it off, the world is still there - no matter how well it is packaged.
I still have that TV - it sits in the basement. I don't think about it very much, and I'm sure my parents have forgotten. But every once in a while, when it's time to wrap gifts, I come across that red and white paper.
I seal my parcels in it.