12

I gave Mom and Dad their gifts. I get them the same kind of thing every year, but parents eat that stuff up. The rest of the relatives started showing up around 11:00, and Uncle Charlie came at noon.

Uncle Charlie brought a big trash bag full of gifts, and he pulled my present out of the top of the bag. The package was the exact right size and shape to be a Twisted Wizard game, so I knew Uncle Charlie came through for me. Mom got the camera ready and I tore open my gift. But it was just an 8 x 10 picture of Uncle Charlie.

I guess I didn't do a good job of hiding my disappointment, and Mom got mad. All I can say is, I'm glad I'm still a kid, because if I had to act happy about the kinds of gifts grown-ups get, I don't think I could pull it off. I went up to my room to take a break for a while. A

couple minutes later, Dad knocked on my door. He told me he had my gift for me out in the garage, and the reason it was out there was because it was too big to wrap. And when I walked down to the garage, there was a brand-new weight set. That thing must have cost a fortune. nkledc. I didn't have the heart to tell Dad that I kind of lost interest in

the whole weight-lifting thing when the wrestling unit ended last week. So I just said "thanks" instead. I think Dad was expecting me to drop down and start doing some reps or something, but I just excused myself and went back inside. At about 6:00, all the relatives cleared out. I was sitting on the couch watching Manny play with his toys, feeling pretty sorry for myself. Then Mom came up to me and said that she found a gift behind the piano with my name on it, and it said, "From Santa." The box was way too big for Twisted Wizard, but Mom pulled the same "big box" trick on me last year

when she got me a memory card for my video game system. So I ripped open the package and pulled out my present. Only this wasn't Twisted Wizard, either. It was a giant red wool sweater. At first I thought Mom was playing some kind of practical joke on me, because this sweater was the same kind we bought for our Giving Tree guy. But Mom seemed pretty confused, too. She said she did buy me a video game, and that she had no idea what the sweater was doing in my box. And then I figured it out. I told Mom there must have been some kind of mix-up, and I got the Giving Tree guy's gift, and he got mine.