The Box In The Basement
Ah, the holidays. For those of us who live in the North Eastern United States, it’s the magical time of year that falls between the spooky joy of Halloween and the absolute suck of everything that comes after the New Year.
My family wasn’t what you would call “financially stable.” And this wasn’t any fault of my folks. They always did the best they could for my brothers and me. And Christmas was that time of year when they would go all out.
Santa’s yearly visit was always the highlight of the year in our family, as my parents loved to make Christmas as magical as they could. But I think it was the Christmas of 1989 when everything almost went off the rails.
Video game home consoles were the hottest toys of the late 80’s and I had been hounding my folks to get us a Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) since the commercials first began appearing on television. Of course, for my folks, it was usually a choice between one big thing or a bunch of little things for us kids.
But in 89, my parents had a bit of a windfall. We would be moving to Pennsylvania at the end of the year because my father had just landed a sweet new job in real estate. By this time two of my younger brothers, Dan and Joe, were already old enough to appreciate the finer toys in life. A simple showing of a few Ninja Turtle action figures and Micro Machines were no longer going to cut it. This year they could really blow our tiny minds if they played their cards right, so they opted to get out ahead of things.
In the late spring of ‘89, a rainy day kept me from being able to play outside. The Christmas prior, my folks had gotten me a little, plastic billiards table we set up in a corner of the basement. So I decided to kill time playing with that.
Naturally, it held my little ADHD brain’s attention for maybe a half-hour. Then I began to try to find other ways to entertain myself. I began to nose around on my parent's side of the basement.
Then I saw it. Half buried behind some moving boxes under the stairs, the glorious red and black glossy box art of a NES. Ever since I’d started in on wanting a Nintendo console, my dad had tried to nip that desire in the bud, first with second-hand Pong and Intellivision systems he got from guys he worked with. Then my folks sprung for an ActionMax system— since it had a light gun it had to be the same thing right? Not even close.
And now here it was, the genuine article, sitting right in front of me like the buried treasure of Captain Flynt! But why was it buried? Usually, my folks would just dump the new toy in our laps right away to shut my brothers and me up. No, something was different about this. What if it wasn’t for us? What if —heaven forbid— it was a gift for some cousin or kid we didn’t even know? I had to find out.
So it became a waiting game. Throughout the summer I’d try to bait my folks into talking about the box in the basement, but they refused to spill. The CIA had missed out on star recruits in my parents. It was as if the NES downstairs didn’t even exist.
By fall I’d gotten sick of digging for information. The leaves were already turning colors. That meant to my pre-teen mind that Christmas was, like, tomorrow! I had to know! I finally cornered my mother in the car, while she was driving me to some extracurricular activity or another.
“Mom, I saw the Nintendo in the basement,” I said, watching her face in the rearview mirror from the back seat. “You might as well let us have it now. Sorry if I ruined Christmas.” I wasn’t.
Mom didn’t bat an eye. “What are you talking about?”
“The Nintendo. In the basement under the stairs? I guess you were saving it?”
“Oh!” My mother laughed. She actually laughed, the conniving woman! “That’s just an empty box we got for moving day. I think it just has some old hangers in it or something.”
As soon as I got home I checked. It was true. The box had nothing but wire hangars stuffed into it. Impossible! My digital dreams of gaming glory were shattered!
Little did I know, my mother called Dad while we were out and got him to take the system, styrofoam and all, out of the box.
By Christmas, I’d all but forgotten about it. We always spent Christmas at Grandma R's house, or Grandma B’s. We switched out each year. This year, we stayed at Grandma R's, opening the gifts in the morning under her tree, then in the evening we’d go to Grandma Bettman’s and open gifts there.
Christmas morning's loot was confusing. Amid the usual toys and candy, there were a few gifts labeled from Santa to me and my brothers. They were Nintendo games, Metroid, 1943, and Back to the Future. According to my mother, she must have forgotten to tell Santa that we didn’t get a NES this year.
At Grandma B’s there was no hint of anything video game-related. The gifts were opened, and all thoughts of getting that state-of-the-art gaming console were shoved aside. Just before dinner, Grandma snapped her fingers.
“Oh, I forgot. We found this on the lawn this morning.” She brought out a white Styrofoam box taped closed with a tag labeled for my brothers and me in the special script my mother used whenever ‘Santa’ delivered something. “I think it fell off Santa’s Sleigh.”
Needless to say, my little mind was blown when I opened the styrofoam and saw that pristine gray plastic casing. My father had cleverly taken the NES in the styrofoam to my grandmother’s, but now they had needed a reason why it was there without a box. Grandma B came in clutch with the story about it falling out of the sleigh.
My folks with the help of their parents, kept the magic alive for me for another few years. I’ll never forget the quick thinking and hoops they jumped through to make it happen. It’s one of my favorite Christmas memories.
