Further proof of Christmas in 1999.

Christmas came and went like so many empty calories on the sweatiest day of my life. In the blink of a Korean eye, which everyone knows is a nanosecond shorter than other ethnic blinks. You know, because of the proximity of eyelids in that near perma-squint, which some racists call slants. All I’m saying is that a door half-closed shuts faster than a door wide open.

1999 proved to be a decent Christmas. My parents gave me Blink-182’s Enema Of The State on cd. Santa Claus, who I never believed in, gave me socks and flannel pajamas. My siblings, two older sisters and a younger brother, got gadgets and knickknacks. What did I care? Their life, my life, no convergences.

There was a great divide at the dinner table. Talks about Y2K, the lousy Chicago Bears with their 6-8 record, George W. Bush’s run for presidency, how surprisingly delicious the turkey was considering how overcooked it was (Perhaps, the greatest Christmas miracle), and Monica Lewinsky. The real cause for the underlying tension was the dreaded task of how our family would contribute to the Avondale 20^th century time capsule. I thought we should contribute a DVD copy of The Blair Witch Project and be done with it. My dad wanted our Christmas photo from ’85, which he endearingly calls Da Bears one. My mother wanted pints of our healthy blood in case there is a shortage in the future. My oldest sister wanted the presence of nothing to symbolize peace being a better state of existence than war. Truth be told, she smoked a lot of weed. Her nickname was Oh no, Yoko. We are not Japanese, she was just too avant-garde. My other sister wanted the ashes of our grandmother in small cocaine packets. Sidenote, she smoked more weed and probably did coke. My brother, knowing that no one would consider his suggestion fairly because of his age and stupidity, mostly his stupidity, already contributed by belching into the canister.

As it grew darker outside, the temperature dropped like either the ball on Times Square or the balls of a juvenile going through puberty while swimming in a public pool. The sound of our family arguing through the night could be heard a block away.

Blink