A child’s most important literary work of the year. A list of materialistic requests to be fulfilled, with no strings attached, unless you had somehow landed on the naughty list. A magical connection with the jolly fat guy living way up at the North Pole, not to mention a direct line of communication with the parental units' wallets.
You don’t get much better than that.
My Christmas lists were always complex. I didn’t leave much to chance. For example, I usually employed a “star” system to denote my levels of want for each particular item. The more I wanted something, the more stars I’d draw in next to it. I didn’t trust that my parents would be able to figure it out on their own, despite the fact that I spent most of my waking hours from October through late December reminding them constantly what I wanted, and what I wanted the most.
A big part of my lists came from the Sears and J.C. Penney catalogs:
It was required seasonal reading. They’d come in the mail and soon after I’d have the toy sections of both memorized. Back then there was no such thing as shopping online. Either you got it from K-Mart in Houghton or the catalog. By the time December came, the catalogs would be literally falling apart, as they would’ve been leafed through about eight-thousand times by my siblings and me.
If you wanted something from the catalog, you specified it on your Christmas list along with the exact product number and the catalog it was in. This was critical, because you didn’t want to accidentally get a Barbie corvette instead of a G.I. Joe aircraft carrier due to an accounting error.
Ooooh, aircraft carrier
Over the years my Christmas lists have dwindled away to where they are now me scratching my head and then telling my parents that I could use next year’s Dilbert calendar, and possibly lasagna.
But that’s the way it works. Getting becomes less important, while other things become more important.
Still, I haven’t made a good Christmas list in a while. So here goes:
My Christmas List:
Christmas Day Sauna: **
A Mountain Dew in my stocking: *
Nephews and nieces tearing into presents simultaneously, genetically unable to wait nicely for one another, so that within seconds it appears that it's snowing wrapping paper shreds from the ceiling: ****
Christmas Eve party: ***
Being home: ****
Snake-Eyes v2 1985 Action Figure: **********
Best toy ever. I think about 4 total were ever made worldwide, so that every little boy dreamt of having one but never got one.
I'm serious about Snake-Eyes! Come on Santa!
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