EllRay Jakes Rocks the Holidays! by Sally Warner Page A

skin color, he is so prickly about it. But I also want to, at least a little. “Why?” I ask, my heart pounding. “Didn’t you have a very big community, either? Is that why you felt like an alien? Not that I’m complaining,” I add quickly.
    “It was a much bigger community than ours is now, son,” Dad tells me, laughing and shaking his head at the same time. I can feel it in the dark. “Even if the African-American population was pretty small in San Diego back then. Some gang action had Pop-Pop pretty concerned, though. But no,” he continues. “I think I identified with Alf because my interests were so different from those of my friends. Good old science,” he explains, shrugging.
    “But what did Talking Alf do that was so great?” I ask, trying to understand.
    “He had a cassette player inside him, and you’d put a cassette in, and his mouth would move as he told you stories about outer space,” Dad says.“It was the latest cool thing, and I thought I could learn something from him.”
    “What’s a cassette tape?” I ask, and Dad shakes his head again in the dark. “It’s kind of what CDs used to be. But never mind,” he says, like it’s too hard to explain. “The point is, for the first time in my life, I got everything I’d even dreamed of getting.”
    “And you were
so happy
,” I say, finishing his story for him.
    I’m smiling BIG in the dark.
    “I was,” Dad agrees. “For about half an hour. And then, guess what?”
    “What?” I ask, my eyes wide. “You woke up, and it was all a dream?”
    “No. It was real, all right,” Dad says. “But I started worrying. What about the next year? And the year after that? Could Christmas ever be that perfect again?”
    Now
I’m
the one who is shaking his head, picturing my worrywart nine-year-old father freaking out about his probably-not-perfect future. Who would’ve guessed?
    “And you know what?” he asks, laughing. “I was right! Christmas never
was
that good again when Iwas a kid. But it turns out that’s okay. Each one was still fun, and I survived.”
    “But—does that mean nothing’s ever perfect forever, or even
easy
, from start to finish?” I ask Dad. “Not even something built-in good, like Christmas?”
    It sounds strange, but this is giving me an idea!
    “It’s okay, though,” Dad says again. “That’s my point.”
    “Then listen,” I tell him, excited. “Maybe we should always just go ahead and mess up some of the small stuff. You know, get it over with! And we’ve already done that this year—like when we brought home that crooked Charlie Brown Christmas tree Alfie felt sorry for. Or when you sat down on the box of ornaments after dinner tonight. Or when Alfie found out she accidentally put her
Fuzzy Kitties
DVD in the
Elf
box, and now
Elf
is lost forever.”
    “Lost in the black hole that is Miss Alfie’s room,” Dad says, laughing. “And only the ghost of Talking Alf knows where it is, but he’s not saying. You may be onto something, son.”
    “And then we could just give up early on Christmas being perfect, and
relax
,” I say, finishing mythought. “We can have a not-so-perfect Christmas!”
    “Now, that is some pretty cool thinking,” Dad says. “But there might still be a few mixed feelings about the holiday.”
    “Yeah, but we’d
expect
them,” I explain. “We’d say, ‘Man, this is
messed up
, just like I thought it would be. Typical Christmas!’ And it would be
funny.
”
    “Well, I know one thing for sure,” Dad says, sounding happy in the dark. “You and I are going camping in Anza-Borrego on the twenty-eighth, come what may. That’s just four more days. Our reservations are all set, buddy. And maybe this trip will give us a chance to find our feet again.”
    Hmm, I think, WRIGGLING my toes. I already know where
my
feet are.
    But I kind of understand what he means. “You used to camp there with Pop-Pop, didn’t you?” I ask. “When you were a kid?”
    “Nearly every year,