"What I gave, I have; what I spent, I had; what I kept, I lost." — Old Epitaph.
In the famous Parker Brothers game Monopoly , a player passing the "Go" square automatically collects $200 in Monopoly money. Unless directly instructed to "not pass Go" and "not collect $200," this increment of income is a Monopoly entitlement.
My boys have begun to view Christmas presents with much the same dependable sense of entitlement. Every time life carries you pass Christmas, you "pass Go" and automatically "earn" gifts. Moreover, this entitlement in fungible. One may trade on its future value. As early as September, it is possible to request an item now as an early Christmas present. This argument is particularly salient when the said item is on sale.
For my youngest, a 10-year-old, the fabric of Christmas is not yet threadbare. My daughter is the first to urge that we trek to the attic, cart down a half dozen boxes, and break out the Christmas decorations. In her eagerness, she eschews waiting for assistance and decorates the Christmas tree by herself if necessary. She takes seriously the responsibility to prepare for Christmas.
My wife is encumbered with the family responsibility for and blessed with the aptitude of purchasing thoughtful gifts. This responsibility arises from the likely potential for embarrassment if I am allowed to make these important decisions on my own. This situation still leaves me with the conundrum of selecting a special present for my wife. Fortunately, my daughter has either learned or inherited a concern for ensuring Christmas mornings bring pleasant surprises. She scours the advertisements in the papers with the shrewdness of an accomplished bargain hunter and the soul of a romantic so that she can offer me well-considered ideas for gifts for my wife.
I have thus found myself in the enviable position of having the two most important
females in my life picking gifts for each other. Am I as clever as I think or am I
the victim of an even more clever conspiracy?
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What does this have to do with Conservative Politics? Probably precious little, but it was what my mind was thinking about this week. Perhaps it will provide important data for some doctoral disssertation on the conservative mind.
On a separate note, Dinesh D'Souza and. E.J. Dionne discuss Reagan versus Clinton at Slate magazine. Some of these arguments mimic the discussion following my essay on Reagan's Victory in the Cold War. Remember you saw it at Suite101 first!
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