Christmas and a girlfriend

Remember when Christmas Eve and Christmas Day were days you only left home, and family, for real emergencies? Well, you left home with family to go visit family...but you didn't go hang with friends or go to the movies.

I went out on Christmas Eve to buy my first girlfriend a gift -- because I didn't know I hadn't known in advance that I should've bought one until her step-mom mentioned it to my mom.

"Karen bought Ted a gift," Mrs. McKeown told my mom.

"Get yer' ass dressed because the McKeowns are going to Daly's. Here's $10!" was my mom's response to me. "Don't buy anything stupid."

I waded through crowded Daly's in the late afternoon and bought a choker I'd have bet money was a nice necklace. I hated every minute of the trip because I was only buying the gift because Karen had bought me something. I was 15 and clueless about how girls and boys relate. I felt it presumptuos to buy her anything because...you know...were we a couple? Or, had we just got to the Eureka High Christmas Prom in 1971? These were questions that haunted me then. And, honestly, I really, really, really like Karen McKeown...but, I couldn't believe any girl really liked me -- even if we did share laughs, talk and do things I enjoyed ... my self-esteem wasn't high, not even after Karen became the first girl I ever kissed...in the McKeown's family room, with their bitchin' Peanuts Christmas Carol lawn display visible through the kitchen window.

Karen was spending Christmas with her dad Jerry McKeown at my pal Berk's house, I got a holiday furlough to go exchange gifts with Karen who, my mom assured me, was probably figuring herself to be my "girlfriend." Remember, now, I'd spent a couple hours finding an ugly choker I thought was a nice necklace, OK? So, I was anxious to get over there and ... just see her. Once I found a girl I could talk to, it sort of changed my interest level in girls overall.

I rode my 10-speed over to Christmas Carol Lane, much more excited about the prospect of having a "girlfriend" I enjoyed being around than about the lawn displays.

So, I get to the McKeowns and Karen's gift was...a salami. She'd noticed I ate the bulk of the salami on the appetizer tray when I'd eaten dinner out with the McKeowns. So, she bought me...a salami. I questioned the whole girlfriend-boyfriend thing because...a salami? Then, I gave her the necklace and put it on and said, "Oh...a choker," that came out sounding more like, "Eww gawwwd...who'd wear this choker?"

So, my first trip outside the family for Christmas didn't go so hot, but I did it to please her -- er, after my mom said I should please her -- and because, hey, I liked pleasing her.

As it turned out, Karen is a thoughtful yet sometimes harried shopper to this day. She's got this giant family. So, now, I know she probably got frazzled (at 14 1/2 in 1971) and thought, "He likes salami...OK. Now, what about my little brother's gift?" The sight of her wheeling a cart frantically through Target in Lincoln the other day was quite something. My 10-year-old daughter and I were there for support, I guess, and to help her buy really, really last-minute gifts.

I figured that gift exchange in 1971 would be a one-time thing that killed the deal for both of us. On Wednesday, I sort of thought that going out shopping and later wrapping gifts for her was one of those things that would make a man more appealing...something that would seal deals, not break them. And, my mom wasn't even there to point that out to me! I figured it out on my own. I thought incorrectly, but my heart was in the right place.

There's a really interesting story in there about how I wound up shopping on Christmas Eve 2008 with the my first girlfriend -- whom I didn't see or speak to really at all from 1973 to 2004.

Well, it's interesting to me.