It’s Christmas time! A wonderful, festive, blessed season that lasts for not just 25 days, but thousands and thousands of years because every time either kid asks, “When’s it going to be Christmas?” the day starts over and has to be lived again. It’s Groundhog Day, but we’re all in on it and it’s humorless.
Holidays are great. Lots of activities, togetherness, an excuse to drink eggnog, endless happy opportunities.
Holidays also bring out the worst in children, who understand that Santa is gearing up to deliver exactly what they want. We parents have turned this Santa fellow into a real crutch, using him to motivate good deeds and also blaming him for the lack of Power Wheels under the tree. It’s fine, it’s a cultural thing, everyone does it, but it’s nothing to be proud of.
In these early December days my kids are constantly asking for everything. The best part is they don’t always have the vocabulary to describe real toys, so it’s sorta the crazy leading the confused. Here are 10 of the best requests they’ve made this year.
1. A Robot Spider That Climbs On The Walls And Ceiling
This one is for my son. He loves spiders and he loves the idea of robots, though every battery-operated robot toy he’s ever received has gone directly to the bottom of the toy bin, never to be heard from again.
I’m sure he saw something like this somewhere, so he’s not making it up entirely, but the toy he’s describing is definitely an advanced robotics instrument that makes more sense for military operations than as a kid’s toy. This spider has to look real, but also be pretty big, and it’s a robot but most importantly it has to be able to climb on the walls and ceiling. That means it needs to be really lightweight and have, like, suction feet. It needs to have it’s own rules when it comes to gravity. But also it should look like a tarantula.
If anyone has an extra robot like this, name your price. I haven’t been able to find it on Amazon yet.
2. A Little Dog That Has A Leash With Poop Bags
I’m still not entirely clear on whether my daughter wants a pretend or a real dog. When she describes the size of this tiny little dog, it seems like it has to be stuffed. No living creature could be so tiny. However, her insistence on it coming with poop bags keeps throwing me off. It sounds like she wants to pick up poop.
Of course there’s no way she wants to pick up poop—that’s not the part of dog ownership kids are drawn to. She wants the leash to look proper, and to her that means poop bags. Seems like I might be able to get away with just putting a rope and some poop bags in her stocking.
3. A House You Have To Build And You Put A Dog In And In The Morning It’s A Puppy
After hearing this ridiculous description, my wife confirmed that the idea was inspired by something in a commercial. Having not seen the commercial, I’m a little baffled. What dog do we put in the house? Setting aside the part where I’m supposed to build a house, am I putting our current dog in there? Truth be told, I would love to put old Otis in a little magical structure and have him come out as a puppy again. Of course that’s an awesome Christmas present. If that’s going to happen, I need a lot more information. I’m guessing you can’t use everyday materials to make an animal de-aging cottage.
If you know the product I’m loosely describing, please don’t set me straight. I’d rather dream of the fountain of doggy youth that a person can build in their backyard. We won’t be getting one this year, but maybe next.
4. That
As you know from a previous post, we’re very pretentious and don’t do a lot of TV watching in our house. When we leave our house, all bets are off.
In a hotel, at a friend’s or my parents’ house, the television gets watched like gangbusters. These are the moments the kids see commercials and discover how fond they are of consumerism.
My kids always think everyone is paying attention to the same thing they are. That means if my children are watching TV in one room while I talk to someone in another room, they’ll simply shout, “I want that!” and assume I know what “that” is and I’ve written “that” down on the running Christmas gift list that I’ve always got handy.
As you can probably guess, I don’t know what “that” is. It’s a safe bet that it’s a Spiderman toy, but it could also be the parts to a house I have to build in order to turn a dog into a puppy. And while sometimes I’ll just pretend I do know what “that” is, I usually walk into the TV room to ask for more information about “that.”
Unfortunately, television rots the brain and by the time I can ask about the commercial, whatever terrible show is back on and my kids’ minds are mush. A few hours later they’ll try to recollect what they saw, but that will only make me more confused.
5. A Red Box Like The One My Brother Has With All The Same Moving Things
Someday our kids will have very unique identities and interests. Until then, the grass is so much greener on the sibling’s side of the fence that they each just request exactly what the other has already received for a birthday or holiday.
Our daughter took it to a new level when she started comparing the slightly different versions of the same thing they each got from their grandma. It’s a little briefcase that opens up into a little scene—robots in a rocket ship for our son, animals in the jungle for our daughter. They’ve both really enjoyed their different versions of this toy, until our daughter realized there are three moving gadgets inside her brother’s briefcase, while hers has only two. Now she wants a briefcase with three moving things. And it should be red, like her brother’s. And have robots, a la her brother’s. In short, she needs the thing her brother has. Please advise Santa.
If you have two kids, it’s best to just buy two of everything. It’s also very stupid to have two of everything, so make sure you consider this conundrum before having that second kid.
6. Magna-Tiles With Buttons And When The Button Gets Pressed The Tower Changes
We’re really hitting our stride with Magna-Tiles, to the point where I’ve linked to their website and am hereby demanding a Magna-Tile sponsorship for this Underfunded Newsletter. I linked again to show I mean business.
The kids are getting pretty handy with these magnetic squares and have built some pretty impressive things. With their skills developing so steadily, my son thinks it’s time to ruin all that with some automation.
Some things may have gotten lost in translation, but it sounds to me like he wants the tiles to have buttons that, when pressed, build a new structure. Instead of having the freedom to build whatever he wants, he’d like the Magna-Tiles to do the work. Fortunately, the people over at Magna-Tile are too smart and brilliant and good-looking and thoughtful and heavenly and great to cater to my son’s dumb whims, and that’s just another thing I appreciate about today’s sponsor, Magna-Tiles.
7. A Tiny Candy Bag So My Baby Can Go Trick-Or-Treating
I think my daughter got confused on this one and then ran with it. We had just put up our stockings and she said she wanted a little bag for her baby. She didn’t clarify which baby and she has named all nine of her baby dolls Baby, but that doesn’t really matter.
She was looking at the fireplace but said “bag” instead of stocking, and then our son asked, “for Halloween?” Even though every muscle in our little girl’s face was twisted into a “no” expression, she still nodded yes. I repeated, “You want a candy bag that your baby can use on Halloween?” At this point she didn’t want to correct us and maybe didn’t remember her original idea, so she confirmed, “I want a tiny candy bag so my baby can go trick-or-treating on Halloween.”
The good news is this is a super easy and affordable present. The bad news is I’m sure she does’t actually want a tiny Halloween bag for Christmas.
8. That
I’d like to blame television for all the brain-dead moments in our house, but that wouldn’t be fair. I’d also like to say it’s usually my kids who aren’t paying attention, but that would also be a lie. Sometimes Dada is looking at his phone and is totally oblivious to what’s going on.
I feel pretty ashamed when I’m reading an email or checking scores and then I come back to non-phone reality just in time to hear, “Can we have that, Dada?” With no idea what I’m being asked, I’ve got three options.
Ask them to repeat the question
Say yes
Say no
Admitting I wasn’t listening and asking to hear the question is a responsible but potentially disastrous choice; the original question could have been many minutes long, and these things tend to get longer the second time around. I could lose hours of my day and hundreds of dollars in wages just by saying, “Sorry, what?”
To say yes is equally dangerous, because there’s nothing less safe than blindly agreeing to a toddler’s proposal. And while I don’t have to keep my word once I find out what I’ve committed to, I’m trying not to break that trust. The other day I absent-mindedly went back on a dessert promise and I’ve been getting nonstop side-eye ever since.
Finally, I can just say no. That’s probably what happens most often. I don’t feel great about it, but it’s the right answer 99% of the time. It’s very rare that the question I didn’t hear was something like, “I want a glass of water so I feel hydrated while I clean my room. Can I have that, Dada?” Saying no poses very little threat, but being the dad who looks up from his phone and just says “No” isn’t exactly the vibe I’m going for.
I’ve tried all three responses with varying degrees of success. I’ve definitely said yes to buying things without knowing what the thing is. We’ll see if that comes back to haunt me.
9. A Suit That Instead of Spraying Webs It Sprays Water And It Has A Hood
It’s a Spiderman suit. It’s not interesting or weird or creative, it’s just that for some reason our son decided it sprays water instead of webs and that made him feel inventive. He had me going for a while; “a suit that sprays water and it’s got a hood and it fits over my body.” I thought it was some clever gardening invention where you turn your kid into a walking hose, but no. It’s a Spiderman suit.
10. A Bottomless Pit Of Garbage
They haven’t asked for this… and yet, haven’t they?
Since toys are made entirely out of future garbage, every Christmas present that isn’t an unwrapped piece of food is a new addition to the ever-more-bottomless trash pit that you probably call something cute like a toy chest. The various “Thats” they see on TV are always the most garbagy garbages in the world, and those are the things they want the most. Beautifully wrapped in extra garbage, that pre-packaged trash is the stuff my kids live for. To them, it’s the Spirit of Christmas.
As we go deeper into the holiday season, with Hanukkah starting this very week, I know what we’re all in store for. Lots and lots of trash will sneak into the manicured landfills we call home, and the kids will absolutely love it. And I’ll love it a little bit too, even though I’m pretty upset.