The Christmas Pig

Finding the perfect Christmas present for a person can often be quite difficult. No matter how well you may think you know someone, hours and days can be spent in malls and on-line trying to get just the right gift. Sometimes the problem is you know the person too well and you constantly out-think yourself (“No, I’m pretty sure she doesn’t need another blue thong.”) Other times you find yourself trying to find something better than the present you have given in the past (“You see, it’s Chia Shaggy. He goes with the Chia Scooby I got you last year. It’s a set!”) And still other times there is a great lack of communication (“Oh…you wanted two front teeth.”) The worst person to shop for is the one you really don’t want to buy a present for, but need to (“It’s not just a fish – it turns its head and sings!”) But on a few occasions in life, I have managed to come up with a good gift.

My girlfriend in high school liked pigs. Wait a minute, that sounds like I’m a…No, let me explain. Some people, normally young girls, collect ‘cute’ things. Panda bears, kittens maybe even frogs. Well, my girlfriend liked pigs. She had little pig stuffed animals and a sweatshirt or two with an iron-on pig. And when I could, I would make sure I got a birthday card with a pig on it (C’mon – Hallmark has everything!) When my father found out that she liked pigs he suggested that we give her one for Christmas.

“What do you mean Dad? Like a Guinea Pig or something?”
“No I mean a full blown, born-on-a-farm pig. Long after she’s forgotten about you, she’ll never forget the year she got a pig for Christmas.”
“Well, where are you going to get a pig?”
“Don’t worry about it son. I’ll take care of it.”

On Christmas Eve I went to work with my father and lo and behold, down in the basement of the offices was a small cage holding a little pink pig. It turns out that one of the women who worked for my father had parents who owned a farm. And it just so happened that one of their sows had given birth in early December. The pig was old enough to no longer need its mom but small enough to still hold on your lap.

That evening I picked up my girlfriend and we headed back to my house to go to mass with my family. I told her we needed to enter through the front door, an unusual thing in my home. I knew she was suspicious, but it didn’t last long. As she turned the corner toward the kitchen my dad entered the house from the garage carrying the pig with a big red ribbon around its neck. There was screaming, laughter, shock, more screaming, more laughter and more shock. It is really quite impossible to explain the joy of my girlfriend receiving a pig for Christmas.

The story could end there. I figured out the perfect gift, got it and gave to my girlfriend who was ecstatic upon receiving it. But this wasn’t exactly a typical Christmas present. This was a lot more than a box of ribbon candy. This was a living creature that had a mind of its own. The real fun began when we got back from mass later that evening. We had put the pig in its cage and left him in the garage. But when we returned a few hours later there was no sign of a pig anywhere. It had broken out of its cage and escaped through the cat-door. So we headed out into the neighborhood, on that mild Christmas Eve and began the search for our runaway pig. We first came across a couple leaving our neighbor’s house.

“Excuse us. This may sound strange, but have you seen a pig?” The two turned and stared at each other for a few seconds before they both bursted out in laughter. Eventually the woman yelled, “I told you! I told you it was a pig! You said I was crazy and senile. That it couldn’t be a pig! It had to be a dog. But it wasn’t a dog. It was a pig! It was a pig!”
We couldn’t believe it. “You saw the pig? Where? Where was it?”
The woman replied, “It was up the street when we pulled into the neighborhood. But that was a couple of hours ago.” And then a little bit of fear set in. We lived in a pretty quiet neighborhood, but a pig would not have to travel far to find some busy streets. Just when I thought I had the perfect gift – a Christmas Pig – it looked like everything would be ruined by Pig Roadkill.

“Jimmie! Come here quick!” It was mom and we headed back to the house. “I just got a phone call from Mrs. Heil. They have the pig!” Dr. and Mrs. Heil lived across the street in the middle of the woods. Dr. Heil was our family doctor. “She said that she knew it had to be us who lost a pig because no one else in the neighborhood would be crazy enough to have one in the first place. Her grandkids have been playing with it all night. Go ahead over and get it.”

And so Christmas and the Christmas Pig were both saved. It lived the next few weeks splitting time between my girlfriend’s garage and basement. We had a lot of fun with the pig but the novelty wore off and eventually we sent it back to the farm where I am sure it lived a happy life.

Actually, come back in a few months and I’ll tell you about the delicious ham we had for Easter.