If we kept a monthly tally of the phrases most often spoken to our kids, "What are your socks doing there?!" would probably win eleven times a year. But not in December, when "Put it on your Christmas list" would easily top the ledger.
The crush of pre-holiday commercials and resulting desire for toys and games (I don't need a Ph.D. in social science to find a causal link) is too much for most kids to bear. The suggestion to "Put it on your list," said with a lilt to underscore its subtext -- that a loving relative or perhaps Santa Claus, the ultimate wish-fulfiller, may deliver the goods at Christmas -- is a parent's best hope for maintaining some level of sanity.
Our boys have been compiling their lists for weeks. They've flipped through the Toys 'R' Us catalog a million times, scoured various websites (especially Lego.com) and narrowed the field of choices down to the most captivating.
In the old days, these lists would have been written in crayon. Well, it's not the old days anymore. We create Word docs to keep things a little tidier and make it simple to email the lists to aunts and uncles and grandmas across the country. Our nine year-old includes the price of each of his items with corresponding links to Amazon.com. (He conscientiously limits the number of big-ticket items on his list to one or two and always includes more books than toys or video games; he gets it.)
This year, we went one step further. We created a master document on Google Docs, enabling Aunt Maria in Brooklyn to make note of any item she has picked up and help Aunt Linda in Phoenix to avoid making a duplicate purchase. It's a gift registry, with Santa authorized to both view and edit.
In theory, it's a convenient and logical system. But after having implemented it, something doesn't feel quite right. It's as if our boys are getting married and are registered at Bed Bath & Beyond. It feels just a little mercenary. We have no expectations that they will get everything or even most things on their lists, and we offer them to our family in the spirit of helping them know what the boys like. It's a step toward efficiency, but perhaps a step away from what Linus would say is "...what Christmas is all about."
So, to help us feel just a bit more comfortable with it, we're going to send Santa a hard copy as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment