On competitiveness

So, my aunt Jackie and uncle David had a pre-Christmas Eve party this afternoon. It was a lot of fun, and it led to a realization about myself. And a couple about my family. But I'll start with the one about me.

Let me start by explaining a "Yankee Gift Swap," or, as my aunt called it, a "Red Sox Gift Swap."

(For those outside of the United States, the Red Sox are the baseball team of Boston, and have one of the best rivalries in baseball -- think Manchester United vs. Arsenal. When the Red Sox had to go through the New York Yankees to get to the World Series, we were more jacked up about them beating the Yankees on their way to the top than when they actually won the top position for the first time in 86 years.)

Okay. This gift swap idea is a variation on the "Secret Santa" concept. Everyone involved buys some sort of small present, usually under $5, $10, $15, or even $20, if the group are real high-rollers. They are all, of course, wrapped and unlabeled, and placed in the center. Everyone involved draws a number. In the order of number drawn, each person opens a present, and then choses whether they wish to keep their present, or take the present of someone who had opened a present before them and give their present in exchange.

At the very end, the person who went first, and therefore didn't have a "swap or keep" option then gets to swap for anything out there. This makes #1 the most desirable position, and #2 the worst.

In any case, Auntie Jackie did a variation in which she bought all thirty presents herself, but it was otherwise the same thing.

Two of the presents were particularly nice, and got swapped around quite a bit. One was a crystal duck statue, similar in style to the sorts of things Swarovski Crystal makes (you know, this sort of thing,, but presumably much cheaper). The other was a set of six gold-rimmed shot glasses.

Now, let me give a bit of background: my mother collects ducks. Actually, my mother accumulates ducks, but it comes to much the same thing. And I am a bartender, and collect bartending things. Actually, I accumulate bartending things -- I collect bartending books, mainly.

So it was pretty obvious to everyone what we were going to swap for, when those things were opened before we got our chance to go.

Oh. And a family tree would probably be useful here, too, in order to explain some of the players. . .

Before I get too deep into this, let me just say that my family is insane, but not at all dysfunctional. In many families, this kind of story would include real deep hurt feelings; this one doesn't. Just in case you don't like reading about stories about families being mean to each other -- this isn't one of those stories.
( This is getting long enough to warrant a cut-tag )

Another realization about my family

This was brought on by the thing in the LAST story about how my Aunt Sue was going to swipe the duck from Mom, then give it back.

If she HAD done that, that would simply have been a normal part of how my Aunt Sue and my mother interact. They have this thing about stealing things from each other, then giving them back as presents. It's a game -- they try to see how large and obvious an object they can leave each other's house with -- and then see how long it takes the other person to notice.

And THAT led me to realize something else about my family, that's always been kicking around the back of my mind . . .

In order to understand my family, studying mythology kind of helps.

If a friend of mine is about to meet chunks of the rest of my family, I mention to them, "You have to understand this: I'm the normal one in my family."

It's not strictly true. My cousin Kate is probably actually the white sheep of the family. Even so, I think I'm more "normal" than at least half of us.

And I realized that my Aunt Sue is a trickster figure.
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