A Real Christmas Story…..

I stopped surfing in August of 1990 because summer was over and the water was just too cold for me. I was already looking forward to Christmas in hopes that I might get a new body glove wetsuit to keep me warm. I just had to get thru the next few months of school. It was nice to see my friends again when school started up. I didn’t notice but my friends all noticed that my voice had changed sometime over the summer. I guess surfing changes a person. I’m not sure why but the seventh grade was tough and I got in a lot of fights. I didn’t start them, I just finished them by pinning my opponent down on the ground in a headlock until a teacher or watch guard came over to break up the fight. At home I would fight with my moody older sister over who got to pick what to watch on TV. For some reason I still looked up to her and not just because she was taller than me at the time. 

Sometime that November my sister and her friends decided it was a good idea to clean up the garage so it could become a hangout area. I think the initial idea was a good one. I helped stack the forgotten boxes from our move from Hawthorne and the older boxes from our other move from Oklahoma to California. The dusty garage started looking a little brighter even though the garage door was still closed.  Around the time it started looking pretty cleaned up a friend of my sister asked if they could tag it. I asked them what they meant by tagging and they said that it meant you get to write your name on the wall. I didn’t see why anyone would want to do that, but figured I’d better keep my mouth shut because I was out numbered and I didn’t want to sound like a stupid kid. I’m not sure where the spray paint cans came from but somehow they appeared and people were writing their nicknames on the walls. I didn’t have a cool nickname like all of them so I drew a red happy face instead. 

It was starting to get a bit stuffy with all the paint fumes and of course that was when my mom pulled into the driveway after her busy day at work. We all heard the car come to a stop and then just a few seconds later mom was struggling with the sticky lock on the garage door. I suddenly felt like maybe mom wasn’t going to like the tagging and we were going to get really busted. The garage door opened and the shock on my mom’s face was enough to make us all aware that we were in deep. After my mom had ripped into us about how disappointed she was my sister and I were banished to our rooms. My room was nothing special just the basics; bed, dresser, desk, small cassette tape AM/FM radio, a few books, no TV, no computer or gaming system. Most of my stuff I was sure was going to be auction off or donated to some more worthy kid as part of my punishment. My sister and I ended up doing some community service on top of being grounded. We had to clean up the parking lots on the Redondo Union High School campus, everything down the gum stuck on ground had to be scraped up and cleaned. It was embarrassingly hard work. I had almost forgotten about surfing altogether. I felt more like a prisoner of a chain gang in one of those old black and white movies that used to play on AMC (American Movie Classics) late at night.

It was already mid-December and Christmas was just around the corner. I was still hopeful that Santa would cut me some slack and not put me on the naughty list. My sister and I were notorious at Christmas time for taking things around the house and wrapping them up to be returned as gifts like spatulas from the kitchen, silverware, VHS movies recorded off the TV. It always helped make it look like there were a bunch of presents under the tree. Christmas Eve came and our bushy tree had a hand full of gifts that were put there by my sister and me. It seemed a little empty but I was sure Santa would help fill the voids with goodies. 

It’s always hard to sleep on Christmas eve, even when you’re a kid. Our general house rule on Christmas morning was to not disturb mom any sooner than 7:00 am. My sister and I awoke almost in unison 6:30 am and made our way quietly from our rooms to the living room to get our first glance at Christmas morning. Something was wrong, very wrong. It looked just the same as it did the night before, nothing changed that we could notice. We stared at each other in total shock. We slowly made our way to the other side of the room where our Christmas stockings hung on the wall. Coal, not the fake stuff, but the real deal was in our stockings. I guess we made the naughty list after all. My sister started crying.

We knew it wasn’t 7:00 am yet but this was an emergency, we had to tell mom. We knocked at mom’s door and she allowed us to enter. My sister tried to get the words out between sobs that Santa came by and left us coal and that there must be something that she could do to help save Christmas. My mom said that if we went back to bed until 10:00 am and if she didn’t hear any sounds from either of us then she would call Santa and see if he had any presents left that he would be willing to give us. It was the longest three and half hours of my life (up to that point). Somehow I managed not to go crazy in the silence. I watched the clock click forward one second at a time slowly making its way around again and again. From time to time I thought the clock started running backwards but there was nothing I could do to speed it up. 

At 10:00 am I still didn’t move just in case my clock was faster than whatever time my mom was using. At 10:04 am a knock of hope sounded at my door. I emerged from my exile and made my way back to the living room with my sister and her puffy red eyes. This time there was a few more gifts under the tree but nothing big, nothing like the years past, but we were grateful to get anything at that point. We opened the few gifts together and when all the gifts under the tree had been open we thought we were done. There were two green cards in the Christmas tree and it was easy to overlook them. One had my name on it and the other had my sister’s name. 

We asked mom if we could open them and she said ok. Mine said that I needed to tell my mom ten reasons why I thought she is great and then the next clue would be given to me. I was confused but I had nothing to lose so I raddled off ten things about my wonderful caring mom that loves me so much and how lucky I was to have such a great parent. Then the next clue was given and I had to do some chores around the house to get the next clue. Then a back rub for mom, after what seemed like an hour of running around my sister and I ended up in front of the garage. Even with the garage door shut it still showed signs of our painting fiasco that had dripped thru the wood slats in places and dried on the outside. I had no idea what to expect. My sister pulled the garage door open. We couldn’t believe our eyes. On the left side was a futon bed for my sister and she danced around screaming in happiness. On the right side was my gift, a ten speed mountain bike with a surfboard rack with a surfboard on it. It was my first real short board, a 6’ 4” make by Don Kadowaki.

My friends and I called it "the Donk" and it was awesome. I was so happy that I almost forgot that I really needed a wetsuit. We made the trip out to Manhattan Beach to meet up with the rest of the family and scored yet again. My grandparents got me a brand new body glove wetsuit and some bubble gum surf wax. It had turned into the perfect Christmas day after all.

CONTACT:  DON KADOWAKI

email:  don@kadowakisurfboards.com