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Tales from Exit 22 by Al Batt

What child doesn’t love a tube of lip balm for Christmas?

That’s because no child wants to miss a single minute of school because of chapped lips.

Lip balm is better than bunny slippers. I received a pair as a gift one year and learned that they’re fiercely territorial.

Some kids, after weeks of dedicated research, discover that if they really want something, they should make it the second thing they ask for. The first thing should be something costly or ridiculous.

After denying a child’s request for the absurd, parents quickly construct an awards podium where the kid receives the most fantastic Christmas present ever, the thing that was most desired given as a consolation prize, while Burl Ives sang, “Have a holly jolly Christmas. It’s the best time of the year.”

I heard about a guy who kept a wrapped empty box under the tree. It wasn’t for the cat. If the kids misbehaved, the father tossed that wrapped box into the fireplace and threatened that the other gifts could experience the same fate.

Each year, I tell myself that it’s never too late to panic. One year, I gave my wife a Rolling Stones album containing the song, “You can’t always get what you want.”

I’m giving my neighbor Crandall a jingle bell rock that he can throw at the radio next year whenever it plays a Christmas song before Thanksgiving.

Part of a store’s plot to sell me everything is to play Christmas music. I hear “All I want for Christmas is dental insurance and my two front teeth” as the economy demands I do my part. One year, I gave each of my brothers-in-law the lutefisk TV dinners I’d purchased in Oslo, Minnesota. Each dinner had lutefisk, mashed potatoes and peas. I gave those guys a Christmas card and Christmas cod. They sang my praises silently.

We had rules in my childhood home. The Thanksgiving dishes had to be cleared before the Christmas tree was decorated. If something didn’t move, we hung tinsel on it. One year, I sneezed and on the inhale, I sucked in two feet of tinsel. If you aren’t a wrap star, use gift bags. Save the bows. They’re expensive.

My mother told me that all Christmas trees are perfect. I remember accompanying my father on an expedition to a pine broker’s lot to bag a trophy Christmas tree. Snowflakes the size of hubcaps landed on my stocking cap, causing me to stagger slightly. Just like cornflakes, every snowflake was different—some more than others. I wanted a balsam tree I could name Martin Balsam. Most of the trees looked tired, but there was one—the king of Christmas trees that towered over the others. It was so tall that it had a blinking star at its top because the Federal Aviation Administration required it. I wanted that tree, but my father said we didn’t have time to build a skyscraper to hold it before Christmas. After my father died, my mother stopped babysitting a Christmas tree and happily used an Advent wreath instead. Its four candles symbolized hope, peace, joy and love.

A friend shared a heartwarming story about his mother. She had spent many of her years wearing JCPenney underwear, which she found comfortable and available. Things changed. Penney’s catalog stopped arriving in the mail. Things got worse. The local Penney’s store closed, leaving her Penneyless. I can’t know how she felt, but I used to drive Pontiacs, and when they stopped making them, I didn’t know if I was on foot or horseback.

Then, just in the nick of time, her granddaughters took her on a shopping trip to a big mall in the Twin Cities. The mall wasn’t just big, it had a JCPenney store.

She did what any woman who appreciated JCPenney underwear would do. She bought all the underwear she and her kin could carry.

Victor Hugo wrote, “Woe to him who believes in nothing.” Our heroine believed in JCPenney underwear.

She explained her cached underwear by saying, “If I ever get to where I’m not in my right mind, at least I’ll be in my right underwear.”

I hope you’ll always be in your right underwear. Merry Christmas.

Al Batt’s column appears in the Tribune every Wednesday.