Christmas Jeer

One of the less salubrious aspects of advancing age is the discovery that many of the tenets you've held onto forever are wrong.  Example 1: "What you see is what you get" - now there's all this Dark Matter and Dark Energy that nobody can see;  Ex 2: "Bigger is better" - now comes Miss Pamela Anderson;   Ex 3: "All Conservatives are stupid" - now there's - - - there was somebody, and it wasn't that long ago, I don't remember exactly  - - - but I think that one could be wrong, too (though John Stuart Mill was on the money when he said that while not all conservatives are stupid people, all stupid people are conservatives).

Anyway, I've always held that it's virtuallly impossible to spoil any child, and that it's absolutely impossible to spoil your grandchildren.  At least not my grandchildren.  But compelling evidence to the contrary arose this past Christmas Eve, when the seats-down capacities of a Durango and a Suburban were required to haul the loot home from Nanagrampa's.  And this was after a preemptory Suburban delivery two days earlier!  There was not even enough room but that a separate vehicle was required to bring home the son-in-law and both headphone-clad dvd watching grandchildren.

To put a gilded frame around the picture: as the grandkids wearily wended their way wading hip-deep through shredded wrapping paper and boxes and ribbons toward the front door that beckoned them homeward, my beloved gap toothed grandson paused before me, looked up, and without a hint of irony queried, "That all you got?"

Full Disclosure Paragraph:  Grampa was pretty spoiled too, with a wonderous Bose surround sound system and the Woodstock director's cut.