Stocking Fever

I planned a family dinner last week - to commemorate the choosing of names for our annual stocking exchange.  I made a big dinner - roast beef and potatoes and cheesy veggies and salad and blackberry-apple pie for dessert.  I know.  I went all out.  I was excited.

Along with the excitement of choosing names, it was an initiation of sorts for my future son-in-law.  This year, we add his name to the stocking exchange. The time for him to find out what it is like to be part of this family tradition.

We generally pick names amongst great discussion - and by discussion, I mean arguments  Either Someone gets the same name they've drawn for the last three years, or Someone picks their own name - and usually they are the last person to draw.  This means we have to start again.  Then, SomeoneElse suddenly decides to use the facilities.  This generates a run on the bathrooms because of the power of suggestion.  Then Someone (other than the first two Someones) gets bored waiting for the other(s) to come back from the bathroom [where they have been playing Sudoko on their phone for 25 minutes without admitting it to the people knocking on the door].  So they leave and then the other Someones return from the bathroom and ask where the others are.  When they find out the others have left, they get mad and leave.  This means that SomeMom has to run around the house knocking on doors re-gathering the troops.  By the time everyone returns to the table for the second go-round, Someone is no longer talking to the rest of the family and SomeoneElse is texting their BFF that they are on their way to the sleepover- as soon as they pick their name. Only one person has stayed at the table the whole time.  And by this time, they are usually asleep.   It's great fun.  And we sign up for it every year.

However, this year we had a potentially good prognosticator with the arrival of my nephew.  He came in the afternoon for a quick visit, and decided to stay for supper (after he found out I wasn't serving soup).  I put him on 'moderator' role.  He would oversee the drawing of the names - both by writing the names down and making sure that no one drew their own name.  My nephew is rather quiet but has a presence, and I was confident that he would be a great security guard over 'the choosing of the names'.

He went into the kitchen with a pad of these.  We sat at the table and listened to him fold them up and put them into my best measuring cup.
He came back and stood guard as each person pulled a paper and looked at it - starting with my husband, and then moving to my #1 son, my daughter, and future son-in-law.  Each time, he looked over their shoulder and pronounced "Yep you're good."

I began to be hopeful.  I said "You know, this is going so smoothly.  You may just have to come back every year and moderate this process.  We have never had a year where we don't have to re-draw."

He let my # 2 son pull a name.  "Yep, you're good".  Then he came to me.  I pulled the name and looked at it.  It said "MARNI".  he said "Yep, you're good."   I started laughing.  "We are going to have to start again."  "Why? " he asked.  "Cuz I pulled my own name."  He looked confused.  "What's the problem?"  

Now I was starting to wonder if he had jigged it so that everyone had pulled their own name, so I asked my #1 son to reveal his name.  "MARNI" it said.  Everyone else held theirs out too.  They all said "MARNI".  My nephew grinned.  And I realized I should have kept my mouth shut.  I would have had quite the haul.