It’s around this time of year that I start thinking about
Christmas. Not because I LOVE Christmas,
or not because radio stations are already playing Christmas music (gag!), but
because the holiday catalogues start piling up, and I begin to budget for holiday
spending.
Most notably, I begin to think of gifts for my five year old
daughter. Here’s where the problem
begins- my daughter wants for nothing.
It’s actually kind of embarassing, but seriously, there’s not much that
she wants that she doesn’t have. Between
tons of grandparents, and a doting push-over Daddy, the girl’s loaded. She has a bedroom full of toys, a playroom
full of toys, a basement full of toys, and a toy box in the family room. She doesn’t even remember all the toys she
has!
I have been trying to encourage her to set aside toys she
has outgrown, to give them to someone who could use them, but it doesn’t
work. She’s convinced she still needs a
0-6 month light up rattle at the bottom of the toy box. **SIGH**
I’ve tried telling her that Santa can’t bring NEW toys to a kid until
she is charitable and gives some of her OLD toys away, to make room for new
one. Nope- no luck there either. I’ve attempted to discretely bag up some
items to throw or give away, but she always catches me when I’m taking the bag
outside, and then I’m really busted.
So a few days ago I gave her the big toy catalogue from Toys
R Us, and a marker, and I told her to circle all the items she wanted Santa to
bring. I then surreptitiously watched as
she began to rapidly circle everything, and I mean everything, that was pink in
the entire catalogue. She probably
circled over 30 things. Then I told her
we needed to look at the items she selected.
Here’s the kicker- she didn’t even know what some of the items were!
Me: What’s this? (pointing to a pink polka-dot
handheld camcorder)
Her: Well… ummm… it’s a…. well… it’s a
looky-through thingy.
Me: What do you do with it?
Her: I don’t know, I just want it!
Herein lies the problem.
My daughter is spoiled. Too
much. And it needs to change. I think there’s a value in earnestly writing
Santa a letter, asking for a special toy.
And counting the days, waiting and hoping for that special toy to appear
under the tree on Christmas morning. The
magic is gone from my household. It bums
me out. I don’t know what to do about
it. I’m all alone on this one.
But yet, I go back to the catalogues, because, whether I like
it or not, the grandparents will be calling me any day now, asking for a list
of what they can get her. And they don’t
take no for an answer. So I carefully
give each their allotted amount of items, making sure that there’s no overlap
or repeats. And the toys will get
opened, and after a few days, discarded in the toy box like all the others. There will be no magic, short-lived excitement,
and no real Kodak moments. Bah humbug!
