So we are deep in the throes of Operation Christmas Countdown. The tree is up and dressed, the Christmas cards we’ve received are hanging from the mantel, we’ve got Bing Crosby and Nat King Cole on repeat, cookies have been made and distributed. and the girls handmade Christmas dresses arrived yesterday (thank, Grandma Lorna!). Pictures of that to follow, rest assured.
Of course, no Christmas season would be complete without the last minute scramble for presents and assorted stocking fillers that have been forgotten despite the day-to-day trips to the malls and department stores. You’d think that I’d have gotten a handle on it all, especially since we’ve decided to keep Christmas more contained than years past. I really wanted to adopt a 4 gift rule – something you want, something you need, something to wear, and something to read — but that wasn’t as well received by the masses as I had hoped. In the end, we decided for the sake of practicality and for the sake of our wallets — hello, economic downturn — that we would buy a handful of things for the girls, that DH and I would exchange between ourselves, and everyone else can have a big helping of, “Happy Holidays from our house to yours”! I did offer my parents a kind of service exchange, where I reluctantly happily do something for them that they’ve been nagging asking me to do, such as organize their photos into photo albums or address their Christmas cards for next year. In exchange for whatever task they have for me, they’re going to watch Mo and Co for New Year’s Eve. Woo! Woo! Woo!
But, back to the last minute scramble. My mom often tells this Christmas story of how a young Hilary with one L had her Christmas list made and that the year’s most coveted toy, a Cabbage Patch Kid (I’m dating myself here), was not on the list. Dear Mom asked and asked, “Are you sure you don’t want one? Are you sure you really don’t want a Cabbage Patch Kid,” to which young Hilary steadfastly maintained, “No”, “No” and again, “No” before going back to butcher the hair of some unflinching Barbie or some such. Almost everyday, Mom would ask me in a twisted “Green Eggs and Ham” type exchange.
Do you want a Cabbage Patch Kid?
Do you want one named Sarah Syd?
Would you like one Christmas Eve?
Would you like one under the tree?
Would you like one here or there?
Would you like one anywhere?
Fast forward to about four days before Christmas: guess who decides they want a Cabbage Patch Kid? Much applause to Dear Mom, though, who had the foresight to have stocked her closet with one or two of those hard-headed, perpetually dimpled dolls with yarn hair. So yes, I did get a Cabbage Patch for Christmas and her name was Joella. I think the next one I got was named O’Greta Hawkins. Seriously, I couldn’t make that up. Dear Mom averted a crisis and all was right with the world. When I heard that story as an adult, I laughed and thought, “That’ll never happen to me, not when I have kids.” When I heard that story as a first time parent, I thought, “That’ll never happen to me, not when Mo-dizz gets bigger.” When I heard that story as a mother of two, I thought, “That’ll never happen. They’ll get what they get and be happy about it!” Then the Fisher Price catalog arrived in the mail.
Curse you Fisher Price and your multitude of pastel colored toys for girls, your glossy pages filled with preschoolers playing effortlessly with toys that have taken a small time of MIT graduate students to assemble! Mo-dizz has been walking around with the catalog under her arm for the past three or four days in a Fisher Price delirium, telling anyone and anything that will listen, “And I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this and I want that and I’ll have that for Christmas and I want this. . . .”
She brings the catalog to the table at every meal. She brings it with her when she takes a nap or goes to bed. She tried to bring it with her to the bathroom, but I had to draw the line on that one — we have a hard enough time finagling good wiping without the distraction of the Loving Family Grand Victorian Dollhouse.
There have been no written amendments to the her Christmas list that hangs from the fridge, but she has been whispering and mumbling about this dollhouse consistently. Do I have it in the closet? Um, that would be a “no”. Like I really knew she was going to want that! Am I going to scramble between now and Thursday to whip this thing out of thin air? Um, that would be a “yes”. And why? Why do it, despite all of my better judgment, all of my posturings, and all of my soap box declarations of how I’m not going to be that mom?
Because there’s a hard-headed, perpetually dimpled doll with yarn hair in Mo and Co’s toy box, and her name is Joella.
