In this Dad Amongst Dudes column, our humor writer imagines his own version of the classic Christmas poem, chronicling his adventures in late-night gift wrapping and assembly for his two sons—no matter the headache.
‘Twas the night before Christmas
And all through my dwelling
My two creatures (kids) were stirring
And the anticipation was swelling.
I ask them to sleep,
Then demand, beg and barter.
When I blurted out, “I’ll give you candy tomorrow,”
I realized they’re smarter.
(Go to bed, Coop!)
So as these conmen settled down
And finally nestled into bed
Visions of sugarplums
Danced in their clever heads.
(Or sugar-something. Don’t overthink it, Dad. They’re in bed. Take the win.)
The cookies were laid out
Decorated earlier that day for several minutes
For Saint Nick to have only.
“Dad, for you, these are off limits.”
No matter.
Putting out the presents is now my concern.
I need to stack them under the tree
Before Santa gets his turn.
We accumulated presents
For the past dozen weeks
From department stores, outlets
And all conceivable LEGO boutiques.
My bedroom looked like
An Amazon box oasis.
With so many deliveries
The driver and I were on a first name basis.
(Hey, John!)
The wrapping took days
And as we gazed on the presents beside us.
With hands plastered with tape
This Christmas, I gifted myself into arthritis.
The clock struck midnight
I’ve got a headache and am dead tired.
Only one gift left to finish
But alas, “Assembly required.”
So on Tylenol! On caffeine!
On sugar! On leftover cookie dough!
To finish this yuletide mission
And to bed, finally go.
But, oh, a sound!
Has Santa landed on the roof?
Nope.
Just Cooper wandering, looking for proof.
(Go to bed, Coop!)
The directions say “easy to follow”
But hope soon starts to slow
As the directions unfold into a room-sized tarp.
“Only 92 steps to go.”
The first three steps were a breeze
But Step 4 isn’t clear.
Neither are Steps 5, 6 and 7
And the part for Step 8 doesn’t seem to be here.
So, you tinker. You toil.
You make guesses. You try.
And when none of that works
You find a video to DIY.
And even the video barely helped.
But I’ve learned I did Step 3 wrong.
And I had Step 2 backwards.
While the parts to Step 1 are not where they belong.
(At this point, breathe, Dad. Breathe.)
I grind out the directions
Connecting Section 1 to Section 234.
As I curse the $11 I declined to pay
For them to put it together for me at the store.
The hours fly by
But finally, it was worth saving that cash.
I have one leftover part
That I intentionally bury deep into the trash.
(That probably wasn’t important, right? I am sure that was a bonus screw, right? Right??!!)
But I will tell you, for all the labor,
For the exhaustion, pain and strainin’.
It’s then you realize
They’ll probably instead play with the box it came in.
No worries, because after all
No matter how much of Christmas we edit
We parents get the discarded paper.
That jolly guy in red gets most of the credit.
And as your head hits your lush pillow
And the sun starts to come into sight.
Merry Christmas to all you hardworking parents
And to all, a goodnight.
Well, tomorrow night, that is, for me.
It’s 6 a.m., and my kids are ready to swoop!
With the last ounce of energy in my body…
“Please. Please. Go to bed, Coop!”
(You too, Milo.)
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Josh Farnsworth is a national-award-winning parenting columnist who lives with his wife and two goofball sons. You can reach him for column ideas at josh.farnsworth@yahoo.com.
This article was originally published in December 2024.
