There are so many things to enjoy about the holiday season.
Fun decorations, hot chocolate, rampant consumerism.
But sometimes the most enjoyable things are the smallest things.
And sometimes, those small things… are dangerously enjoyable.
So much fun, that somehow, you end up spending Christmas in the Hospital.
So this happened when I was about 7 years old, and the thing you need to know about
me is that I love solving puzzles.
Not necessarily jigsaw puzzles in particular, but any kind of puzzle like Rubik’s Cubes,
Sudoku, anything where there’s an unknown solution, but everything you need to find
it is already in your head.
There’s something absolutely magical about that to me.
So every December, when a small trickle of presents from family and friends would start
appearing under our Christmas tree, I saw them as puzzles begging to be solved.
It was my annual grand challenge to figure out what could possibly be in those boxes
before the 25th.
Now of course I could cheat.
I could peel the wrapping paper back just enough to get a peek at the box.
And I won’t lie, I may have done that a few times.
But not only is that a great way to get into trouble, “Timothy…” it’s also much
less satisfying than figuring it out on your own.
Shaking the boxes, on the other hand… anything you can observe without tearing the paper
is perfectly fair game in my book.
Feeling how heavy a box is, and how the weight distributes inside is pretty often just enough
info to solve the puzzle.
Maybe you can feel - through the paper - that one side of the box is flimsy plastic.
That could be the window that displays a remote control car.
Maybe turning it over causes an avalanche of tiny plastic pieces within.
*lego sound* That can only be legos.
The problem is that my mom would usually hide anything too obvious until the night before
Christmas, which meant that usually the only puzzles left for me to solve were the hardest
ones.
And I know what you’re thinking, why don’t I just... snoop?
Mom’s closet, crawl space, back of the fridge.
No dice.
Apparently one year my brother used the ol’ credit card trick to open up my mom’s locked
closet to find all of the gifts she had hidden away.
Ever since then my mom would hide presents at her office.
I never had a chance.
For my first few Christmases, I never successfully guessed what my presents were.
Until one year, when a very peculiar present showed up.
And for some reason, my mom decided to just put it under the tree instead of taking it
to her office.
It didn’t come in a box.
It was wide, and flat, with what I can only describe as a small cylinder sticking up from
the middle, which made the wrapping paper drape down toward the edges, like a really
short tent.
Fascinating.
I puzzled for days, trying my hardest to figure out what could possibly take this strange
shape.
I puzzled and puzzled 'till my puzzler was sore.
Until, finally, for the first time in my 7 years, *ding* I successfully guessed what
a present was.
The minute it clicked, I just knew I had to be right.
There’s nothing else it could be!
I was straight up shaking in excitement.
Frothing at the mouth!
I SOLVED IT!
I had a few weeks to wait before I could find out if I was right or not, but my excitement
didn’t really die down.
I don’t know if you’ve ever experienced the rush of solving a puzzle, but let me tell
you, it doesn’t get much better than that.
One morning when I was taking a bath before school I noticed a little red spot on my leg.
It was kinda puffy, I don’t know, but it didn’t look good, so I asked my mom and
she said I must have gotten bit by a spider in my sleep, which like… mom, there are
spiders in my bed?
The next day, the red puffy spot had gotten bigger, and it was like, ooh, that’s probably
not good.
And the next next day there were a bunch more red puffy spots, all over... everywhere.
And I was like, ooh that’s really not good.
I can’t remember exactly how long it took to realize that this wasn’t about to stop
on its own, but on Christmas Eve, we went to the hospital.
Apparently I was so excited, that I broke out in hives.
My fragile little body just couldn’t handle it, and if Benadryl wasn’t a thing it would’ve
spread to my trachea and murdered me.
All of that for the dumbest present imaginable.
I just want to reiterate, I wasn’t excited for the present, I was just excited that I
figured it out, ok?
It was... one of those coin collector maps with a little slot for a quarter from each
state, and a stack of quarters.
And the worst part is that when my mom saw it she said “I guess you really like coin
collecting, huh?”
Boy it feels good to get another video done!
You might have noticed that I’ve been posting pretty consistently this year, and that’s
because of my incredibly talented team.
Alyssa, Bella, and Kayla, working with you is an absolute joy, and I can’t wait to
see what we do together next year.
And to everyone else, thanks for watching and Happy Holidays!
Here, I got you a present, it’s another video!
Woahhhh... click it...