All I Want for Christmas....

'Tis the season! At our house, as Thanksgiving approaches, it seems to be the signal for the children to sit down at our kitchen table, pull out a piece of paper and a pencil and start making their Christmas list. Zachary worked very diligently on his, the "big" item being a video camera. My artsy creative 9 year old would like his own camera to film and edit his own movies. That is his #1 choice of gift. He spent a considerable amount of time last summer making a movie with his friend Ethan. They had a BLAST and spent days working on it. I thought, what a great way for them to be creative and be independent. The more I think of it, I have this underlying fear that I will be the "victim" of his "movie making" which in the hands of a 9 year old could easily morph into spying. So IF he gets this video camera from Santa, there may have to be some rules to go along with it!

Daniel wandered upstairs and saw Zachary's completed list. Zachary offered to help Daniel (by doing the writing for him or in IEP words be his "scribe") which was greeted with great enthusiasm.

Zachary- "ok Daniel what do you want for Christmas?"


Daniel- "A Vtech Little Smart Alphabet Picture Desk"


Zachary- "What?"


Daniel- "A Vtech Little Smart Alphabet Picture Desk"


The list then continued, Toy Story Mania Wii game, The Peanuts Holiday DVD collection.....you get the idea. But number one is the "V tech Little Smart Alphabet Picture Desk". Then he says, "I really want that, I already know my alphabet (yeah, since his was 1 1/2 years old) but I want that". You see, he has a thing about the alphabet. He loves the order of all of the letters, how they always are said in order, he LOVES letters. He knows this is for little kids, but oh how he wants it. And whenever anyone asks "Daniel, what do you want for Christmas?" he says "A Vtech Little Smart Alphabet Picture Desk, I really want that", in a way that is reminiscent of Ralphie from a Christmas Story saying, I want an official Red Ryder, carbine action, two-hundred shot range model air rifle!

There is an excitement and a joy as he rattles it off, just like Ralphie does. It makes your heart go out to him. He has his mind SET. Although no one can respond, "you'll shoot your eye out kid" as everyone did to poor Ralphie. Most people just say ooooooohhhhhhhhhhh and nod politely.

How did he find this toy you ask? I do not know for sure. As much as I can figure he was googling the alphabet and stumbled across it on the internet. I have asked him many varieties of questions, such as, "did you see this toy at someone's house?" "Have you played with it before?" To which I get the answer, "I want that, I really want it". I guess it doesn't really matter HOW he found it. He did find it, and he really wants it. This much is clear. And here it is...in all it's glory!
The only place I have found it, however, is in online auctions. So here I am again. Having flashbacks to when he wanted a "Little Pinocchio carved out of wood with strings and joints" and me searching on the web endlessly trying to find this "toy" that is not a toy, until I finally found one on ebay, beat them down in an auction and took it home. I was willing to pay an astronomical amount of money for that damn Pinocchio, I mean, it is practically a one of a kind, literally carved out of wood, but I believe I got it for like $35.00. Or how about last year when he wanted MAN SIZED BUNNY SLIPPERS, and I FOUND them? It seems that every year there is one interesting item on his list that he has stuck in his head and it becomes my mission to find it.

I bid on 4 different auctions for the "V tech little Smart Alphabet picture desk" and lost them all. Granted, I wasn't willing to pay a very high price for it, so I kept getting beat out in the last second. Unlike Pinocchio there seem to be millions of them on Ebay. Why? I do not know. Is there some reason everyone is rushing to put the Vtech Little Smart Alphabet Picture desk onto online auctions? Is it so annoying that they want it out of their house at any cost? Do people not just give crap like that to Goodwill? Why go through the bother of selling something for $4.99? Which by the way is what I purchased this coveted gift for, $4.99 plus $6.95 shipping and handling. I have a feeling that the $50 Wii games, train tracks, $59.99 robot that will also be under the tree, will be second fiddle to the $4.99 used, "Vtech little smart alphabet picture desk". But I'll have made him very happy because I have again found the random item that he asked for and Daniel RARELY asks for anything. Let's face it, at least he won't shoot his eye out, and maybe, Zachary can film him playing with it!