Wish List

Today we're making our wish list for Santa.  Every one else must be too because I have heard a lot of
 friends complaining about the expensive items their kids are requesting.  I'm in the same boat over here.
  This made me post this on Facebook:  "Santa Clause is not Daddy Warbucks.  They don't even look
alike. Get over it."  I'm amazed that a 10 year old and younger would think they are getting laptops, camcorders, digital cameras, iPhones, and the like for Christmas.  Maybe somewhere around the world they are but right here where I live they are not.  Even if my kids were Perfect Little Line - Marchers (which they are not, I assure you they are the opposite) they wouldn't be getting adult gifts for Christmas.  A laptop?  For a child?  That, to me, would be like searching out our nearest child - loving pervert, wrapping him up, and putting him under the tree for my child.  The rest of the requests are just as preposterous.

Being in this jolly mood made me think of being a child myself.  I loved Christmas.  I wonder if I ever asked for anything that wild?  I'm not sure and I'll have to ask my Mama. I do remember going to Gaylords (store) and watching Santa parachute into the parking lot.  I loved the decorations on top of the Sears building (in Meridian, Mississippi - not the one in Chicago.... which is not even the Sears Tower anymore - it's now the Willis Tower.  "Wha choo talkin about Willis?"  I didn't even know naming rights had time limits.)  When I saw the big Christmas tree, the presents, the Winnie the Pooh on top of Sears I knew their wish list catalog was out and it was time to start circling my dreams.  Roller skating Barbie and Ken or Rodeo Barbie and Ken?  What the heck!  Circle 'em both and put a triangle around that Barbie horse.  Don't forget to circle the Cabbage Patch Kid and put about 50 exclamation points all around it.  Atari!  Just tear out the whole page with the Atari on it and mail it up north.  I wore those catalogs out and by Christmas their pages were thin like a Bible's pages, more dog ears in them than you could find at the local pound and torn half way in half from me and my brother fighting over it repeatedly.

I just remembered a crazy thing I asked for one year. In 2nd grade,  when my Mama asked me what I wanted from Santa I said:  "One of those elephant noses like at Dr. Hover's."  I wanted the nitrous machine from my Dentist's office and I wanted it right by my bed so I could wear it to sleep every night. I didn't get it.  My Mama should have locked me up right then and there.

It is healthy to want and it is healthy to not get.  It will not kill a kid to want a toy or a piece of heavy electronics and not get it.  I don't know if they will get over it but they surely will not die.  I still haven't gotten over Disco Duck.  The commercial came on and I about had a fit to have it.  I thought it was a Disney album with Donald duck and other songs.  Here's the original song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc5d01_riBo 

That album never came and I waited and waited and waited on it. My Mama said it would be coming in the mail and I truly believed her. Now, at 36 years of age, I know she didn't even try to order it and just said she did to get me off her back.
Thanks, Mama..... and I got you back in my teen years.


So, what is the normal amount of money for Santa to spend on each child at Christmas? I haven't bought a single thing and feel the panic seeping in. I need to give my husband a dollar amount for the whole shebang (children and other family and friends) and I don't want to end this Christmas with a big fuss. We will all make time to get out in the holiday traffic and shop with all the crowds, so I hope we all get to make it to a church service. If your church or one near you has a candle light service on Christmas Eve - I highly recommend it. If they have a Christmas Pageant or a dinner to attend then I recommend that, too. Make a plan for a church function and comment to tell me how much you spend on Christmas.
PS. The picture on top of this post is of Madeleine looking at a Target Christmas flyer we got in the mail. I got a picture of
the girls looking at toy catalogs last year, too and I'll share that now. Aren't they the cutest?