Photo: Wallyg

If the Ghost of Christmas Past were to visit me, I'd be forced to watch myself buying and wrapping gifts for others that never got mailed. Sure, they were probably delivered at some point during the following year. But Christmas Day would have faded into history before then.

Fortunately, most anyone I exchange gifts with is cut from this same cloth. It doesn't hurt my feelings at all to receive an unexpected holiday package on a random Tuesday in March.

So with a week before Christmas still to go, it's a little early to be talking about this year's gift giving. I bring it up because today's Theme Thursday topic is HISTORY.

I would like to take you back to Christmas 1998, the year all my long-distance family received gifts from me on time. See, that year, I didn't have to mail them because my father was playing Santa.

He was taking a December trip to his sister's — not for a holiday gathering, but the timing was convenient. He loaded up his suitcase with wrapped tokens of the season for loved ones from me.

A few years ago — in October 2006 — I got a phone call from Dad, who was then on a mission of a different kind. He was organizing a closet, and needed my help.

"Do you remember who this gift — oh, let's see, about 4-inches by 4-inches, in candy cane striped paper — was for? The attached card got separated." He was asking me about an item from the 1998 haul.

I couldn't say, which was unfortunate, because on this day of heightened productivity, he was all fired up to mail it.

"Well, open it and let's see," I said. I'm sure its intended recipient would give the same permission. I'm also sure whomever that was would laugh like we did at its contents. Someone in my family never received a 1999 Joke-of-the-Day tear-off calendar.

Couldn't possibly be a zinger in that thing as funny as the history of the calendar itself. And not having it to open on Christmas Day doesn't make the thought worth any less. At least, that's the line I'm going to throw at the Ghost of Christmas Past if it ever comes to visit. Besides, it's not like I'm intentionally procrastinating — I totally come by it honest.