I may have to put the kabosh on Santa this year. Seriously. This is how I came to this conclusion...
The American Girl catalog arrived this week. I made the girls finish their homework and eat dinner before they could look at it. Then they each took a turn looking through it, pen in hand, circling the items they coveted the most. Each girls circled around 83 items in the catalog, so I sat on the couch with them and we ranked their top 5 wanted items. Chandler's list was most impressive and looked like this...
1. Rebecca's costume chest...$100
2. Julie's banana seat bike...$80
3. scooter....$49
4. Julie's calico dress...$28
5. Heeley's (for the doll!)...$18
So then we had a conversation that went a little something like this....
Me: You know, Chan, that dress up trunk is, like, $100. That might be all that you get.
Chan: *seriously alarmed* From who? From you? From Santa? My only present?
Me: Well, I don't know. But a $100 is a lot of money...especially for one thing.
Chan: Mama, don't worry, I know its a lot of money. I'll just ask Santa for it. Santa can really make ANY toy.
(Casey is nodding her head furiously in agreement, Chandler is relaxed...problem solved.)
I had to send the girls up for a bath before I told them about the furlough days and the 2.4% pay cut that Santa and Mrs. Claus had to take this year.
On a completely different note...
I was teaching a class of 3rd graders about choosing a "just right book" a couple of weeks ago in the library. We were talking about the 5 finger rule and being like Goldilocks and finding a book that was not too hard and not too easy. One thing led to another and we started talking about how the length of a book does not matter when it comes to the level that the book is written on. The phrase that I chose to describe this was, "size doesn't matter." Oops.
1 comment:
You don't have to nix Santa yet! We tell Jonah (b/c last year was Linus' first non-believing xmas)that Santa has to make toys for all the boys and girls in the world and so he has to use his money and elves wisely so every child can't get a bunch of 'big' presents. If they choose something big, that may be their only present. Anyway, the stocking is where it's all at anyway. The crap.
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