Christmas is coming

I just spent a few hours shopping for toys. No, not these kind of toys or even these kind, although that is tempting... Um. What was I saying? Oh, yeah, kids. Kids are challenging. They're just one big mess of WANT and NEED, and there are a bazillion ways to satisfy those things, and unless you know the particular child, chances are, you'll choose wrong. But when Kevin came around the office with these pathetic letters from children who can barely write, asking for presents for Christmas, I fell for it, and I took two. One was pretty straightforward, OR SO I THOUGHT. Six year old girl seeks doll to play with. What she didn't mention was the type of doll that would be the doll of her dreams. Do we go with baby doll? Barbie doll? Bratz? Jesus! The kid is 6! We spent two hours on the internet yesterday researching this, and several hours and a harrowing trip to Toys R Us in Times Square later, we were still without a solution. Did you know that there is a whole room devoted to Barbie at that Toys R Us? Yes, my friends, plus several other rows full of dolls of every shape and size. Black, Latina, Asian, White, Fairy, Princess, Mermaid. Sigh. That's not even counting the anthropomorphic animal dolls!

And the other letter was no easier. Written by a single mom with three boys, her husband is out of work, her oldest boy is in the hospital going through his second bout with leukemia, and she isn't going to be able to get the kids anything for Christmas. Melts the heart, doesn't it? Yeah, that is why I picked the letter. But she didn't specify what her kids wanted, or what they liked, or anything. She just wanted to make sure each of them had one present to open for Christmas. Heartbreaking. But as anyone who has kids or has ever been a kid knows, it can almost be more disappointing to get the wrong present than none at all. How do we know if these boys are readers, or into sports, or like games, or... You get the point, right?

Luckily, at the Toys R Us, we managed to get some pretty cool Legos sets for the two younger boys, on sale! The older boy is in the hospital, and we had to keep that in mind--something he could do by himself, or that wouldn't annoy someone else sharing his room or interfere with the machines. I originally wanted to get him a cartooning kit, but we couldn't find it at the toy store.

Actually, we couldn't find much at that big Toys R Us. It is way too big to be able to find anything easily, and the salespeople were all busy herding tourists or cleaning up the vast piles of crap that the tourists left in their wake. God, that place is INSANE. We finally decided to get the Legos and this Polly Pocket doll for the little girl, and booked it out of there.

Still needed almost everything we came for, so decided to walk down to the K Mart attached to Penn Station. Surely they have toys! Well, they did, but none that we needed. Target in JC was still open, so we hurried back to the PATH, and got off at that stop. Perfect! Time to spare. And the best thing was the Target was deserted. I've never seen it so empty. It was blissful. And not only did we find a knock off American Girl doll for the little girl, but we got a Perplexus for the oldest boy! That was something we'd debated about getting one of the younger kids, but after having seen it in the store, I'm glad we picked it for the oldest--It looks hard!

Anyway, mission accomplished. I feel like at least these kids will have something to open this year. Something incredibly silly, not like the clothes and potentially food that they could probably use more. I'll just have to hope they're mom's got them in some other support programs to help out with all that practical stuff. This is just for them to enjoy. I just hope they will!

Finally, I ended up weaving in the ends of my Christmas knitting, so I finally get to call it done. Pics and write up next time. I'm beat--going to bed!!!