I, Sophia Lisa Salazar, come by my geekness honestly. Born of a math wizard who programmed way before computer classes existed, my sisters are, respectively, a calculus teacher and the other, a patent attorney with an MBA and two engineering degree. Against them, my humble J.D. glitters like pyrite.
So you can only imagine the ambivalent, introverted silences that drop like big globs of gravy after our Christmas dinner has been eaten. The only thing breaking up the energy drain is an adolescent-aged nephew hopped up on sugar aggravating his wannabe-math-Ph.D. brother.
Until I gave the boys my home-made gifts constructed from old ’70s record album featuring the Fifth Dimension. Needless to say, neither of them had heard of the group.
Now, I have mentioned before that I don’t do cable. Instead, I have a dedicated laptop hooked up to my flat screen TV so I can stream Netflix and Hulu. So I YouTubed “One Less Bell to Answer” by the Fifth Dimension.
What ensued was one of the funniest Christmases our family ever had. Realizing the possibilities, my math-aspiring nephew jumped up and shared “Merry Christmath”, followed by hyperactive nephew’s favorite “Funny Cats” video, my mother’s favorite “Hamlet, the mini pig, goes down the stairs”, one sister’s “Extremely Scary Ghost Elevator” video and the other sister’s obligatory nod to Gangnam Style (although, for the record, she says she can’t stand it). And to round it out, my brother-in-law brought back an oldie-but-goodie from the TV show Who’s Line Is It, the Richard Simmons episode.
And to show we had some class, my oldest nephew turned us on to Spike Jonze’ video of a joint performance by the world-renowned cellist Yo Yo Ma and jookin’ dancer Lil Buck.
We watched about 15 videos in all, laughing, wondering and thinking about this wonderful world that the computer has given us. What better way for a family of mathmeticians and geeks to spend Christmas?
Happy Holidays, everyone.
And with that, I will leave the sound of the 12 Days of Christmath ringing in your ears …