i slam the door to the fridge and stagger past the cranberry-imprinted plastic cloth stretched over the kitchen tableon which we made out after a hellacious gig last year , mind youand continue into the living room where i spend the next two hours taking down the artificial tree that has no presents under it from bea , just a years supply of eco-stain-able from mom and a new toaster from dads that was a left over from the new checking account promotion they had , along with a digital music player i gave myself , which only causes me to think of bea more because she used to claim all my christmas presents to her were really gifts to me ) , and i am reminded how everythings so small these days that its hard to get any presents of substance under the tree like when i was growing up and you couldnt even see the tree skirt because it was piled with such big gifts .