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Jesus, I didn’t get the kids any gifts again. What is the matter with me?

Hold on a minute. I actually think I have an idea. What if we celebrated Christmas all year round? It’s the one time of year people behave with civility. So maybe then our leaders would know how to act, and so would we. Then maybe our kids would, too.

Christmas all year round? That’d make for a loooong year for us Jews.

But maybe we’d get more shit done, besides just shopping.

It’s something to think about.

CHRISTMAS DAY, 1:15 P.M.

And a Child Shall Lead Them to a Toy Store

Willie and Jenny have two children, and in my eyes they seem to have no trouble raising them in New York City. If you met Gus (who is ten) and Leo (who is seven), you’d have no idea where they were raised. You might even feel that these two were raised in the most charming colonial in the middle of the greenest lawn in the quietest, least violent town in America.

I have no gifts for Gus and Leo. Only once have I ever bought a Christmas gift for the kids. It was a Strat-O-Matic baseball game. (Don’t ask.) I got the board game version. (I told you not to ask.) I bought it for Gus, actually. So I’ve never officially gotten Leo anything. I wonder if he holds a grudge? Do seven-year-old boys hold grudges? Do they relish a seething animosity? I didn’t at that age, but then again, at that age I was a saint. Don’t believe me? Well, fuck you. I was—especially when I compare it to the decades I’ve spent falling from grace. (It’s been a long fall.) The way things are going, I am sure if I weigh the pros and cons I will be going to hell.

Come to think of it, maybe all adults go to hell when they die. That would explain why God would allow an innocent child to die in all sorts of hideous fashions because the only way you get to heaven is when you haven’t lived long enough to fuck up in any major serious fashion.

I wonder if maybe Leo is pissed at me. “Wow, here comes Lewis again. What a prick! He never buys me shit for Christmas. He gave Gus that great game once and I got nothing.”

Believe me, it’s not him. He’s a great kid. I just never know what to buy for kids, especially kids who already have stuff that I want, like someone who actually makes food for them, or the newest video game delivery system that delivers state-of-the-state-of-the-art video games.

When Gus and Leo were younger, I didn’t want to buy them anything because I was afraid there might be a moving part that would fall off and leap into their mouths, lodging evilly in their windpipes, choking them to death or leaving them twitching uncontrollably because they licked the sealant on some Chinese-made toy, a sealant whose main ingredient is also found in a secret nerve gas they were working on for the military.

I hate to sound like one of those people, but from time to time I become one of those people. But in my more lucid moments—and I know they aren’t that often—I wonder: How come no child where I was brought up ever choked to death on a toy? Were kids choking and the adults just hiding the fact from us? Did they have a special burial place for them? Seriously, what were we doing differently then, in a time when people didn’t hesitate to drive drunk, women smoked while pregnant, and seat belts were summarily ignored in every car that had them? How is it we are paying more attention now and getting fewer results? Is it because society sobered up? Do drunks, because they are drunk, pay more attention to what’s in front of them?

These are questions that keep me up at night. Seriously.

And then I wonder: What the fuck has happened to us? Are toys worse for us now because we don’t make toys in this country anymore? Sure, we had polio and tuberculosis to contend with, but our toy chests were never threats to our health and well-being. (Call me crazy, but never once did I say, “That toy looks delicious, I think I’ll shove it down my throat.”)

Leo may be holding a grudge because I never gave him a gift when all