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"Look! It curled!" I exclaimed in shock as I attempted, with dubious success, to employ scissors in order to curl the ribbon I had essentially tacked to the Christmas present we got for my parents.

Freckles, who was lying on the floor next to Baby J while I wrapped, started to laugh. "You're like the anti Martha Stewart," he said, and then imitated me: "Look! It curled!" 

"Shut up or I'll stab you with the scissors," I said, which doesn't really count as a legal threat because, um, actually, probably it would hold up in court in most states. Oops. He kept laughing at me, so I made my ultimate threat: that someday I'll have my own TV show and leave him in the dust.

"It will be called The Speedy Gourmet," I explained, "but there will be an asterisk after 'speedy.'"

"There should be one after 'gourmet,' too," Freckles said, clearly because he is a husband with a death wish. And also one who cooks 97% of our meals. What can I say? I think seasoning is a waste of hand-sprinkling energy. (Except when I'm the one eating. Then it's quite tasty.)

If we really were on television, this would probably have been the point where I did, in fact, stab him with the scissors. But we're not, so I started laughing. Encouraged, he continued.

"You should call your show the 'Home' and 'Garden' show," he said, "with quotation marks around 'home' and 'garden'."

"Whatever," I said, again distracted by my wrapping work. I finished it up while Freckles entertained Baby J by speaking to him through the wrapping paper tube. He held it up to Baby J's mouth so that Baby J could speak through it as well. Baby J obligingly opened his mouth and attempted to eat the tube.

I decided this was progress in my never-ending pursuit of healthy eating perfection. Then I realized I had finished wrapping the present.

"Bada bing! Done!" I shouted.

Freckles started laughing again. "That should be your motto on your cooking show," he said, "every time you finish, you should yell that."

"I totally should," I said.

Outside it continued to snow.

We could plausibly be compared to the family in The Shining now, except that our film crew hasn't arrived.

Also, we aren't in a haunted hotel.

But these are just details.