The Christmas surprise

What is this Christmas Surprise? Well, it all began in May when I bought my tickets to come home on Christmas Eve and only told one person, my brother Charlie. Scheming for how we would pull it off did not begin til after Thanksgiving, which was partly for my sake since just holding onto the secret for so long was making me partly insane. How did I avoid the ultimate surprise ruiner, that of my parents coming down to surprise me in Guatemala? Well, I told them that I would be going to Belize for Christmas. I figured that with my brother at home, the situation could be controlled, which it was.

So here is how it played out. On Christmas Eve, I left from Guatemala for Dallas, where I had to wait 7 hours for my next flight. The wait was excruciating. I could hardly get to sleep that night as it was. About 45 minutes before my plane left, I called everyone in my family while they were celebrating our traditional Christmas Eve meal at my uncle Hen and aunt Cathy’s house. I did not want to call because I knew I would have to answer all kinds of questions about my time in Belize. They asked, “How long was your bus ride?”, “What is it like there?”, “How warm is it?”, “With whom are you staying?” and other such questions. I had prepared for these questions, though, and had already formulated the answers. I said “It had taken 17 hours by bus and it was a bit cloudy today but was 80 out.” “I was with other volunteers from Guatemala and we were staying right on the beach. It was beautiful.” Besides calling to wish the necessary “Merry Christmas” to all my family members on my dad’s side, I also called because there was a tiny glitch to our plan. It was definitely our weakest point but something that could potentially be easily resolved. Leaving from Dallas at 7:30pm would get me to my hometown at 11:00pm. Taking about ½ an hour to get home from the airport, I was thinking I would arrive to my home somewhere between midnight and 12:30. That was a bit of a problem though as my family, as usual, were going to midnight mass at 10:00pm. It would probably get done a little after 11:30, which would not allow me to get home before my family did. So I had to think of something to buy time. When I was talking with my parents and sister, I asked them to do me a favor. I asked, “Do you think you could do me a favor? Down here in Guatemala, we do all our celebrations at midnight. Some people from my community want to know what it is like at midnight there in the United States. Could you go downtown after mass and take some pictures of the Christmas tree with you all next to it?” Well, they said yes, and with Charlie helping the cause by chatting about things like fog lights with a friend and my dad after mass, my time I needed had been gotten.

OK, so now I am back to me in Dallas. It’s about 10 minutes from departure time and we still have not boarded when they announce that there are some minor mechanical problems with the aircraft, something which can mean anywhere between a few minutes to a few hours. I stayed calm, bought some subway, and came back to find that they would board me and we would take off only 15 minutes late – Thank you God. I got in at 11:15 where family friends of ours waited for me. I tell you, I have to give them once again a huge thanks. There are not many people who want to do that that late at night, let alone Christmas Eve night when most people are in their homes. So they brought me home. They helped bring my suitcase inside and situate some gifts according to what was said in the videos I had made for my family to watch as part of the surprise. So with the piñata and painting in the barn, they left me. I cleaned my snowy tracks in the kitchen and headed upstairs to prepare my small bag of gifts, also something that would play out in the videos I made. I opened my suitcase to find that one of the gifts had been opened by TSA. I hurriedly wrapped it using the same paper and ankle wrap I found in the room. I set the bag out, turned out the lights, and the moment that I sat down in my closet I heard my family walking through the door. Phew! My heart was just pounding. So they got settled and Charlie told them about the video I had sent him through an email and how I had wanted that they watch them before they went to bed. They began the first video, which is just below.

After watching the first video, Charlie runs up stairs, grabs the bag, and glances at me in the closet to make sure I am there and not passed out from the intense suspense that is gripping me. They open their “small gifts” and then watch the second video, which is just below.

So after watching the second video, I hear Katie, my sister, yell “Joey!” because she and everyone else are frustrated that they have to go outside to the cold to see what is out in the barn. They do go, though. Charlie makes sure he is the last one to go out and before he leaves yells upstairs, “Come down, come down, come down” so to let me know when to make my way down the stairs just behind the door to the kitchen without being heard. You see, that is why I had needed my family to go out to the barn, so that I could come down the stairs and position myself immediately behind the kitchen door without being heard.

They find the piñata and painting, which was a surprise for my brother, and then come in to watch the final video in the kitchen. That video is just below.

The part of the video where I ask if they noticed if there were anything in common and I pause, the singer sings the words, “I’ll be home for Christmas.” I ended without saying what the surprise was. When I say, “Because my last surprise is…”, I open the door to the kitchen, walk out, and surprise everyone. Luckily for me and you, my brother stuck a camera in the corner to watch the surprise unfold and save it forever. It had to be split up because of it’s size, but runs from when my family is going out to the barn after watching the 2nd video all the way to when I surprise them. The videos are below.

Well, I tried to put on the 3rd part of ¨The Christmas Surprise¨ in this entry, but was unable to. I had to put it on a different post just after this one. You should be able to get to it at this address: http://joejonaitis.blogspot.com/2009/01/christmas-surprise-continued.html. If not, try looking it up. It is under the title "The Christmas Surprise Continued.¨