In retrospect, it was a "small" Christmas. That's a HUGELY subjective term and all things are relative because if I were to compare it to one of my Christmases when I was a kid? HOOBOY. My kids are so freakin' spoiled. So. Spoiled. That said, I spent all of December annoyed at Alexis and her ridiculously specific list soooooo ... she missed out. She got less things because I was annoyed.
I probably need to make it up to her at some point. It's not her fault she started to treat her Christmas list like an order at a fast food restaurant. I was her order taker and was expected to match her requests exactly, but so were her grandparents and other people who wanted and needed her to be very specific. That's what started her crazy. People asked her to send them links, so she started to handle everything with links.
I happen to be the kind of person who gets a ton of joy out of walking around a store and looking for the perfect treasure. I *love* to put a lot of thought into gifts and carefully pick out something people will like. The thing is that Alexis forgot how good I am at it, particularly when she's the recipient, and the whole thing turned into a collision of annoying. She was all, "I want this exact shirt from Pac-Sun" and I was all, "I could have bought you this AMAZING outfit from a different store that you would have loved more" and blah. It was stupid.
In the midst of the stupid, there was a reminder that Alexis was born at the wrong time. The child should have been born decades sooner. Now there's a record player in her room so she can pretend she was. She has mostly been listening to Elvis and The Beatles, which says so much about her and the age of her soul.
And serves as a great reminder. I'm pretty sure that I got a record player (and a CD player!) for Christmas in 8th grade as well. I spent my hours listening to George Michael rather than Elvis, but still. For as much as my kids are spoiled, we do have a few things in common.