I
wish that I could say I love the holidays, but that would only be
semi-truthful. I definitely love the idea of the holidays—the decorations, family get-togethers, the
snowy evenings filled with hot cocoa and romps in the snow, etc.—as long as
someone else is doing the decorating, the preparation, and the romping. One thing I do love to do
is cook treats, like cookies and other nifty stuff, but I’ve been put on a
short leash on that one because of buzzkills who watch their weight and think
one little cookie…or maybe two or three…a day…will ruin their diet plan. Pshaw!
I
also like to buy gifts for family, friends, and those in need. I discovered
something this year, though, that is quite unsettling: I’m incredibly bad at buying
gifts for our grandkids. Like any good grandma, however, I’m choosing not to
take the blame for this. Instead, I blame my son. It’s all his fault, and here’s
why:
1.
He
is terrible about giving me ideas for what our grandkids like. Living far away
from them means we don’t get to see them as often as we want, and even though
we keep up on the major life changes—like from Fischer Price to full throttle
Mattel—the minor adjustments in their tastes in toys and such, for example when
they move from Mickey Mouse to Miley Cyrus, often slip past us with nary a whimper.
And when we directly ask our son what to get so we won’t look like out-of-it slacker
grandparents or thoughtless scrooges, he just says things like, “Oh, you know.
Boy stuff.” Which leads me to my next reason for blaming our son…
2.
He
had boys. They are dear and sweet and wonderful and I wouldn’t trade them for
the world or even a Klondike Bar, but because of my son’s apparent inability to
pass along one lousy X chromosome once in a while, they are of the gender for
whom my shopping intuition does not apply, and due to my husband's current workload, I'm the one doing the shopping. My little dears are like Kryptonite to my
grandma shopping superpowers. Even if I do find that one item that my son
managed to verbalize to me, I can’t find it in the right age range or color or
it won’t be the right character. I can search for hours in the superhero
section until I’m dazed and drooling and never find one damn G. I. Joe.
However, I can turn around and face the other aisle—the GIRL aisle—and I become
the Martha Stewart of girl toys. I know just what fashion doll to get for every
young cousin or the best baby doll for every friend’s kid. I can tell you which dollhouse to buy for a
40-year-old empty-nester. I can point you to the right makeup kit for your
thirteen year old or the least expensive but most appealing kiddie kitchenette
for that budding Betty Crocker. But stick me in the aisle with model airplanes
and super blaster water guns, and I’m at a loss.
3.
You
might wonder how I could have raised a boy and yet still can’t buy toys for boys.
Well, that’s my son’s fault, too. He was an unusual lad, one that skipped from
splashing in mud puddles to building bridges over them or little sailboats to
sail across them before the diaper came off. Yep, he’s an engineer, and when he was very young, my husband
and I divided up the toy shopping thusly: He shopped for the boys and I
shopped for the girls. It was simple and fast and I always figured that I’d
have time to eventually buy something for my little da Vinci before he moved
from Marvel comics to the marvels of constructing the coolest treehouse in
Ithaca. I didn’t. When most of our neighbors’ kids were still struggling with
trying to figure out where their poop came from, my little angel was disassembling
his potty chair to see where the poop went after it plopped out. An amazing boy, but such a disappointment in terms of helping me
train for grandkid gift buying.
So here I am, a week before Christmas,
trying to find the right thing so on Christmas morning my grandsons won’t open
their gifts and bleat a collective “Eeeewww!” so loud I’ll be able to hear it
all the way across the country. I’m tempted to do the Revenge of the
Grandparent thing, where we buy the kids a drum set or a play electric guitar. Or even
worse, one of those recorders every kid learns to play—if you can call it that—in
5th grade. Maybe I’ll do the chemistry set thing, so that my dear
son can see the error of his ways brightly lit as his little scientist in the
making whips up something slightly flammable but oh so colorful. Then there’s
the Slime and Playdoh options, also known as “Your Carpet Will Never, Ever Be
the Same” options.
You know, I think I’m inspired. I need
to post this so I can go shopping. I saw a karaoke machine at Target with enough
Disney tunes on it to make my point to my son loud and clear, or put him in a coma from all the buzzy tunes, and I think it’s
on sale. Yes, that, and maybe a set of bongos, will make nice presents this
year.
What about you? Experiencing any
shopping woes? Highs? Got any advice? Please do share, and in the meantime, may
you enjoy a very happy holiday season filled with peace, joy, and love. :)
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