The Secret Of My Santa Success
Semi-Secrets Sorta-Revealed
Nothin’ to see here, folks. Coupla cans, some gift wrap, a brick. Move along now …
You do realize I have to turn in columns and features five to six months before the cover dates of the magazines, right? Yup. That means I’m sorting out the Christmas gift guides and scribbling December columns in July. You might imagine it’s tough to work up some Ho-Ho yuletide cheer in mid-year, particularly here in Fried Grit, Texas, where it is currently 104 degrees Fahrenheit—but for me, it’s not a problem at all …
When you’ve spent enough Christmases in the tropics and subtropics, from sweltering soakin’ wet to desiccated convection-oven dry, environmental conditions cease to be a Christmas consideration. Too, just due to the Chaos Train of my life runnin’ off the rails, I’ve learned you can successfully celebrate Christmas anytime between Halloween and about mid-March. I’ve done it, and they were some of the best Christmases ever.
It’s no secret and I freely admit I’m goofy about Christmas. I came by that honestly, I think. Between Dad being at sea almost constantly and Mom’s recurring cancer necessitating long stays in stateside hospitals or Hawaii, we were rarely together on December 25th. But when we could be together, oh, yeah—it was Christmas!
As an alleged “adult,” I’ve spent three Christmases in hospitals myself, too many overseas cradling a rifle on a rock or in a mudhole, and others more often than not on-duty as a cop. Maybe you can understand why for me, it’s not just about a date on the calendar. Enough about that. I got somethin’ in my eye.
My Christmas shopping usually begins on December 26th and runs through the 24th of the following December. It’s not an obsessive-compulsive disorder—and if it is, I don’t care—I just keep Christmas in mind all year and take copious notes. Lots of times I’ve already wrapped a gift for someone the week before Christmas when I run across the perfect gift for them—for next year.
Bestest Gifts For Bestest People
Several of you have asked what I give my shooting friends for Christmas.
Last year I gave some Rollpatch .22-.50 cal rolls and a Paul Clean spike-tipped jag or two in the giftees’ favorite calibers, and the recipients gave them five stars. Those receiving Victory Targets were tickled, and I know somebody who’s just gonna love their MagPacker.
Other gifts which have received rave reviews from my buddies have included bunches of Super-Brush Gun-tips and Bore-tips foam-tipped gun cleaning swabs. They’re inexpensive, lint-free, cleanable/ reusable and highly efficient. I recommend the 9-piece assorted-size packs of Gun-tips, and the Bore-tips come in 6-packs in various calibers. They’re available at many gunshops and online. I’ve also routinely given packs of HotHands handwarmers, essential items for avoiding frostbitten wooden fingers during winter shooting. For wrapping suggestions, see Horrible Wrapping Ideas, below.
What is the most highly-praised and loudly lauded gift I’ve given to my Neanderthal pals in the past five years? This has nothin’ to do with shooting, but everything to do with keeping shooters happy and well-fed. In civilian circles it is called “creamed chipped beef on toast.” Anyone who has dined elegantly in the sumptuous splendor of a military mess hall knows it as “SOS.” The O and second S stand for “On a Shingle,” the shingle being toast. If you don’t know what the first S stands for, ask any old veteran. I’ve had it very, very bad and magnificently good, and this can produce grand results. I call it “SOS FMF-S [REINF]”—that’s SOS, Fleet Marine Force Style, Reinforced.
Give ’em one 46.1-ounce can of Mountain House freeze-dried Creamed Beef and one 27.2-ounce can of Provident Pantry Premium freeze-dried seasoned Beef Crumbles. I get mine from Emergency Essentials, at BePrepared.com. Include these instructions:
Get a buncha quart-size zip-lock bags. When you open the cans, divide contents into one cup portions. Get as much air outta the bags as possible, roll the bags and return them to their cans, holding out one portion of each. Keep the plastic lids sealed tightly. Re-hydrate one cup of Beef Crumbles in 1.5 cups of very hot water for about 3 minutes, then drain.
In a pot, add one cup of Creamed Beef mix to 2 cups of cold water. Commence stirring over med/high heat, adding in the Beef Crumbles. Do not bring to a full active boil—just a dimpling simmer. SOS will thicken as you stir and it simmers. When it’s the desired consistency, remove from heat and ladle over shingles. The remainder, if any, can be cooled and refrigerated for later re-heating and use.
Go a little nutz while stirring and simmering if you like, adding diced red onion, crumbled bacon, fresh-ground black Tellicherry pepper, a spritz or two of Garlic Valley Farms Roasted Garlic Juice, whatever. Get creative with your shingles, too. Try toasted dark German wheat with a slice of Swiss melting on it; cheddar-cheesie ciabatta or focaccia bread, herbed and anointed with olive oil. Heck, you don’t even need a shingle. I’ve heaped it on stir-fried vegetables, baked sweet potato fries, scrambled eggs with sautéed peppers and more. Outdoors, in camp, it’s the bestest … Hey—you asked, and I answered.
Horrible Wrapping Ideas
If you can gift-wrap boxes neatly and prettily, well, good for you. I can’t. My gift-wrapping looks like someone molded wet giftwrap around a chunk of an old Soviet Soyuz spacecraft which broke up, fell to earth and crashed. So, I have embraced my inability and revel in it. Now, if anybody in my orbit gets a gift that looks like a bicycle run over by a semi and wrapped by a gorilla on LSD, they don’t have to read the tag. They know it’s from me—especially if it’s wrapped with yellow and black plastic CRIME SCENE—DO NOT CROSS tape. That stuff’s cheaper than fancy ribbon—100 feet for $7.90 or 1,000 feet for under $20 on Amazon. It stretches and makes nice big floppy bows.
I’m generous with packing tape and semi-skilled with a tape gun. Mix-and-mismatch packing tape with duct tape, electrical tape, and strategically placed Band-Aids. Mix up wrapping paper too. If you wind up with a “bald spot,” fill in the gap with The Hulk birthday wrap, newspaper, or a swatch cut from an old T-shirt. Just tape over it—heavily. Pro Tip: Never cut gift wrap with scissors. Slash it with a machete for pure panache.
The cavities in standard concrete cinder blocks can hold lots of small stocking-stuffer gifts. The blocks wrap easily, giving your gift some “mystery heft.” I like giving gift certificates from outfits like Cabelas, BePrepared.com and The Kansas City Steak Company, too. Just put them in a little gift envelope, tape that to a brick—or between two bricks—and wrap it! Keep an eye peeled at yard sales and junkyards for other cheap, creative gift containers like SpongeBob Squarepants piñatas, rusty Hello Kitty kids’ lunchboxes with sprung hinges, punctured basketballs and the like. I once gift-wrapped a busted 5-foot tall Phoenix firebird kite, taping the real gift, a gift certificate, to a wing inside. Be sure to give clues about that stuff in your little “To-From” envelope.
Now, are you sorry you asked? Welcome to the world of my Christmas madness, folks. Connor OUT
