No. NO! I haven’t even started the Christmas shopping. You’re asking if I’ve finished? Again? I haven’t been shopping at all except for milk and bread. Stop asking!

Just like you, I don’t have the money to buy gifts for Christmas. My husband says "Wii would like to play" at our house. It's a great video game system. I played it at Best Buy and I'd sure like to have one, but I think I'd rather have a second car - unless Mario Kart can get me to work somehow.

We got the tree out and the decorations and we very nearly even hung the stockings with care. (I almost typed “with car.” I must really be thinking about that second car.) The stockings have sat on the hearth with apathy, apprehension, appendectomy – you pick one. Yes, we can afford to fill the stockings with some kind of sugary junk to make the kids just hyper enough to forget there isn’t jack holding the tree up except the dumb dogs who have decided the tree skirt makes a nice bed. 2009, would you get your butt in here?

Seriously, folks – when a dealer in the south can’t sell a truck, when a realtor can’t sell a McMansion that’s not even haunted, when gas is back to the price it was before I bought the SUV that I’ve now sold because gas was too high, what in the wide, wide world of sports will save Christmas? *Hyperventilating* Okay, I know. It’s really not about what we have under the tree right? (Keep stroking the back of my hand though.)

It’s about celebrating Jesus’ birthday, and enjoying the time we have together. But, but… the water bill has gone up by over 100 percent! And every other person I know is out of a job! And, and… dogs are being euthanized! *Deep breath* Let’s talk about what we can afford to buy for the kids and what’s realistic. We can’t get a car for Christmas, that’s just crazy talk. And like I said, the Wii would be nice, but it just doesn’t seem fiscally responsible, even though it would be a gift for the whole family (and probably half the neighborhood).

My son Ian is older, and for the first time ever, he is asking for clothes. Now, you know that since he is sixteen, there is no way I’m going to be able to buy clothes for him without him being there to pick them out. I can’t even get him a gift card, because I’d surely pick the wrong store. So it’s looking like a homemade coupon of sorts for him. No, I’m really not worried about him reading the newspaper and figuring out early what he’s getting. He’s too busy playing guitar and hanging out with his girlfriend.

My daughter, Gracie, is five, and she has told Santa (Yes, the real Santa!) she wants a pair of those Heelys roller skating shoes and a Furberry. I’ve already got some fur berries at the back of the fridge, but they don’t look or smell like the fruity-aroma’d convertible teddy bears in the TV commercial. Off to ToysRBribes I will go for that magical merry maker. What’ll I get for the spouse? I have no friggin idea, so let’s stay with the kids theme.

Let me give you younger parents some warm advice from the experience I have had with buying toys for kids. When you look at the toy, think the following things to yourself:

+ “How long will this toy keep them outa my hair?”

+ “Is this a toy that will cause me to have to participate on a regular basis?”

+ “Will my child learning anything by playing with this?”

+ “Is this toy so much fun that I will suddenly have too many neighbor kids in my house on a regular basis?”

+ “Is this toy something that would be easy for me to pick up off the table/floor/yard?”

+ “If a part is lost to this toy, will it still work?”

This last question reminds me of something little miss Gracie said to me the other night. She wanted to play with her remote control car from “The Bee Movie.” It’s a cute little rounded yellow Speed Buggy-looking car with two bees from the movie driving it. When Gracie wants to play with it, it usually means she wants to chase the dogs around the house with it. Those big dumb dogs are afraid of the silliest things. The small smart one is the one to watch out for. But that’s another column.

Gracie had been looking all over the house for the remote control to go with this bee car. She looked under the couch and in her toy box and had me getting boxes off the top shelf in her closet. I tired of the search quickly and went back to my business downstairs. Five minutes later, I hear foot steps slowly descending the stairs. She is crestfallen after a fruitless mission. She sighs and looks at me with puppy dog eyes from the bottom step and says, “I guess I’ll just have to live a remoteless life.”

Return to Shelli's Columns main page.