The digital media landscape has always been a hard row to hoe, but our Pa does his very best to make content day in and day out so that we have everything we need. Here are four times Pa had to work overtime at his digital media job so we’d have orange slices and freshly mended stockings on Christmas.
1. The time Pa had to skip church to interview a guy who went viral for making a life-size LEGO version of his wife
None of us will ever forget the Sunday before Christmas when Ma was stirring cinnamon into the oatmeal and us kids were scrambling into our church clothes, and Pa walked in with his head hung to explain that he wouldn’t be accompanying us to services since he had to call up a man from Saint Louis to ask him how he felt after receiving two million favs on a picture of a five-foot-four LEGO replica of his wife he’d tweeted that morning. “You all go on ahead,” Pa said sadly. “Ol’ boss McGorley says we ought to get this thing up on the site by high noon, as he reckons the LEGO wife guy’s fixing to get ratio’d over giving his wife unrealistically LEGO breasts.” Little Mary Beth began to cry, but the rest of us understood that Pa needed to keep up his beat of Twitter-drama-related freelance assignments so that his direct deposit would be enough for the materials Ma needed to make Mary Beth’s Christmas rag doll. Sure enough, we listened to Pastor Gillis’s sermon about the virtues of hard work while Pa typed away, and when we got home, there were freshly peeled orange slices for all of us—not to mention the fact that Pa had turned in “This LEGO Hobbyist Might Love His Curvy Wife A Little Too Much,” shut down his monitor for the evening, and chopped some wood for a fire.
2. The time the whole family pitched in to help Pa write a mid-winter listicle about all the cringiest moments from Friends
We knew there wouldn’t be money for the cotton thread Ma needed to mend our stockings for the New Year unless Pa got his listicle about Friends moments that didn’t age well into tip-top shape, so we all gathered around his standing desk to help the best we could. “What about the flashback to when Monica was fat in high school,” Henry offered. “Or when she got cornrows,” said Mabel, “lot’s of Monica’s plotlines didn’t age well, did they, Pa?” Pa tousled Mabel’s hair and nodded, adding our ideas to his Google Doc as fast as he could. The wind howled outside and we all watched with bated breath as Pa put the list items in order from least to most cringey, saving the juiciest content for last. When he took a step back and looked over the fruits of the labor we’d all done together, a smile spread across his weatherbeaten face. “Put down your mending, Ma,” he said. “If we can manage another list like this for How I Met Your Mother, it’ll be brand-new silk stockings for everyone this year.”
3. The time Pa’s website pivoted to video
There was a terrible blizzard the year Pa’s website pivoted to video, and we spent ages trekking back from the schoolhouse in last year’s holey mittens while Pa sat bundled at the kitchen table, filming himself reading a script about the tinned fish trend and pointing his fingers wildly so that he could later edit in images of tinned fish where he was pointing. We all tried to explain to little Mary Beth that we’d just have to tighten our belts this Christmas and thank Pa for whatever it was he could provide, because it wasn’t going to be an easy one. In fact, one of Pa’s coworkers, a one-legged man named Johnny Simms, had just been laid off for no good reason, and Pa had to learn to work the video editing software without Johnny’s help. It was a cold, cold winter. But there was one bright spot: Pa’s video about a new type of sponge went viral, and the company sent us a dozen of them, all wrapped up in branded tissue paper! We soaped and scrubbed the cabin top to bottom all Christmas morning with our new sponges—even Henry, who detests cleaning!
4. The time Pa got carpal tunnel on Christmas Eve and spent the whole night moaning in his easy chair
When Pa had to finish a “20 Perfect Christmas Day Family Activities” list before Christmas itself, it nearly killed him—he had a dreadful attack of carpal tunnel at his desk, and Ma had to set him up in his ratty old armchair with a blanket over his legs and his laptop in his lap. All night, we tossed and turned, waiting for Santa but hearing only Pa as he groaned and muttered, “Sledding—no, I’ve done that one, dagnabbit,” and “Blast them all, finger painting IS a Christmas activity! Oh, my wrists!” We knew how badly he was hurting, but we also knew he’d never stop, because this one article could mean the difference between a happy Christmas and no Christmas at all. Somehow, after we’d all finally drifted off and the dawn began to approach, Ma got out the juicy imported oranges she’d hidden away in a closet and sliced them up. We came out of the bedroom to see them glistening there on a plate of our good china, and sat around the tree digging into them together. Pa, of course, was snoring in his chair, but his typing hands were at rest, and we knew he was happy.
