As an only child, I looked forward to Santa’s arrival as if Jesus himself was pulling the sleigh, loaded down with the gifts and goodies that I had written out in a very complicated gift matrix.
Dear Mr. Claus, if you bring me Rainbow Lite Brite then leave behind My Little Pony. If Cabbage Patch Kids are coming then definitely add the Mega Bloks Slumber Party Set but, for the love of the manger, no more Rubik’s Cubes.
And in the holiday season, our house was a winter wonderland. My mother had trimmed the tree with a fevered amount of tinsel and lighting and even included edible treats, in case one needed a holiday snack while walking by the tower of pine. The stockings were hung on our fake fireplace and I had baked Santa extra Christmas cookies, decorated with restraint that year instead of my usual urge to create sugared snowmen with two heads or reindeers with no legs.
I held out hope that Santa would bring me the mother load, the gift every girl dreamed of, the Malibu Barbie penthouse.
I had received Malibu Barbie, a blond California bombshell, for my birthday a few months before and we had become close friends, shunning the Smurfs and the Care Bears like social pariahs.
Instead of sugar plums and fairies, I fantasized about Barbie and Ken entertaining their fabulous friends on the rooftop of their pink plastic kingdom, overlooking the roaring waves from our bathroom sink. Their nonadjustable legs splayed out on striped plastic flotation devices as the mystery guests pulled up in their convertible corvettes.
My penthouse would have a coat check and Ricardo Montalban greeting guests at the door with Mai Tais and fantasies. I worshiped the lifestyles of the rich and plastic and I needed the real estate to seal the deal.
There was one box for me under the tree big enough to hold Barbie’s cocktail-infused dreamscape and I had spent Christmas Eve circling the tinsel, occasionally tipping the brightly wrapped gift in hopes that it would surrender a hint of its contents.
Finally, the moment came with my father opening his 50-piece tool set and my hippie mother unwrapping her Zippo lighter. I tore at the box like a feral animal, squealing at the possibility of spending the evening with Malibu Barbie and her entourage. After all, she was dressed in her holiday finest, sequined shorts and a new haircut that resembled the Flock of Seagulls, sunglasses still sewn to her head while her face registered the perpetual dim expression that said, “I like the sun.”
I peeled back the cardboard flaps and peered inside. My smile faded. There in the darkness of the box was not Malibu anything, nothing Barbie-related. There was something puffy and navy blue. I looked at my parents as if I had clearly opened the wrong gift.
This marshmallow thing seemed industrial, something geared for safety and destined for my father’s work bench or an article of clothing he could wear out on the tarmac while servicing an airplane. This nylon madness couldn’t possibly have been for me.
Yet my father excitedly reached into the box and spooled out the gift. It was a sleeping bag. A plain navy blue sleeping bag and it was mine. My bottom lip began to quiver. Not even a Barbie Sunshine or Hello Kitty sleeping bag in exchange for being on my best behavior.
Sensing my impending hysteria, my mother enthusiastically offered to sew a butterfly appliqué on the puffy mound to make it feel more girly. My mother was, and still is, a big fan of the glue gun and she was always adding garnishes of fabric where nature had left off. But the sleeping bag was beyond even her reach.
Santa had failed me.
My father, however, was oblivious to my pain and said, “Climb in, try it on.” I looked to my mother to rescue me and she tightly smiled as my father continued, “You’ll need it the next time we go camping. This sleeping bag zips up to fit your body exactly. No arm movement, no leg room. It’s called The Mummy.”
I turned Malibu Barbie’s head away from the Christmas carnage.
“No room for snakes to get in,” my father continued, pitching his hand-picked gift to our doubting duo. “Except, of course, if they crawl across your face but at least with this,” he proudly stated, “You’ll have a fighting chance.”
