You know how despite how much you spend on Christmas presents, there’s always that one kid that pouts because they “didn’t get what they wanted?” Yea, well this year, I’m that kid.

Overall, it was a pretty great Christmas for our family.  We opened a pile of presents, ate too many cookies, and spent quality time together.  I even got the Barbie I wanted.

But, as I pack away the decorations and get my home back into order, all I feel is disappointment.

 

 

 

Because once all these packages were opened, I realized there were a lot of things I wanted that I didn’t get.

Call me spoiled.

Call me a dreamer.

But, whatever ya’ wanna’ call me, I gotta’ let you know there were things I really, really wanted for Christmas, but didn’t get.  Same thing happened to me last year.

This is what I really wanted for Christmas.

 

1. Magic Carpet 

Who wants to face Seattle traffic?  Why can’t I fly above the city with my hubby when we wanna’ go somewhere?  Instead of looking for a parking place and then paying exorbitant parking fees, I’d just roll it up, tuck it into my over-sized purse, and off we’d go. Should reduce my insurance, too, ‘cuz no fender benders in the sky.

 

2. Can of Invisible Spray

Since the kids have found all my hiding places for all my things that I have to hide from them – chocolate and scissors and pens and tape – I want a spray that with one ozone-ruining poof could make them invisible from my children and save them from inevitable extinction. 

The spray has to work on me, too, so if I don’t feel like answering, “Mom, where’s my _____________?” for the 187th time, I won’t have to.

Adapting a song I remember from Laugh-In when I was a little girl,  the theme song for this spray would be “AND PPPFFFTTT, MOM WAS GONE!”

 

3.  Booger Resistant Paint

Paint has changed since I had started having kids.  Now you can buy mildew resistant paint for your bathroom.  You can buy chalkboard paint. Kids haven’t changed.  Kids and grandkids alike have this inability to discern the difference between a tissue and a wall.

C’mon, work with me, people, it’s not that hard.

Tissue is usually white 8×8 square piece of soft paper to blow your nose on.

A wall is a mixture of 2×4’s, sheetrock and siding that holds your roof on the house.

But, until children of all generations learn this lesson in discernment, I want paint that instantly repels nose candy.

My walls will say, “I’m rubber, you’re glue, boogers bounce off me and stay stuck on you.”

 

4. Teflon Carpet

If they can make pans that nothing sticks to, why I can’t I have carpeting like that?  This is 2013 and we put man on the moon decades ago.  Can’t they come up with a way to keep women from having to dig raisins out of their carpet fiber?

 

5.  Self-Cleaning Toilets

I have a toilet brush right next to every toilet.  Every bathroom is stocked with cleanser, glass cleaner, toilet bowl cleaner, and jumbo containers of disinfectant wipes.

Clearly, it’s not working. After having company last time, I went into the bathroom and was mortified by our toilet.  EEWWW.  I will spare you the details. I was thinking how horrible they must think we are, until I realized it might have been the company that left the bathroom in that state???????

 

6. Peace and Quiet

Those gorgeous Miss Universe contestants can try to wax eloquent about world peace in a dress that cost more than a rocket launcher, but I would settle for peace on a much smaller scale.  I’d settle for peace between the offspring. I’d settle for not hearing those little bickerings over who ate the last cookie, whose turn it is to do dishes or who is the coolest.

If I can’t have peace and quiet, I would like the arguments to follow these topics:

“Who’s going to buy Mom the most expensive birthday gift?”
”Who’s going to weed the entire garden without being asked?”
”Who’s going to clean the three toilets on a weekly basis until death do us part?”

 

7.  Alice

I want my own Alice. Ya’ know, the Brady Bunch Alice? Someone to make all the meals meals, pack lunches, do the laundry, grocery shop and break up fights between the kids.  She must be willing to wear sensible shoes, an ugly uniform, and live in a 10×10 room.

So what did Carol Brady do with all her free time?  No wonder her hair was always done and she could walk around the house in a cool outfit without a hair out of place.  Without Alice she would have looked more like Phyllis Diller.

 

8. Boomerang Bed

The sheets and blankets should fly back into place the moment I hauled my bum out of bed each  morning. At 48 years old and  I’m tired of making my bed.  According to my calculations, I’ve made a bed over 16,000 times!  If you count the times I made the beds up for my kids, that number increases.  Since I’m pretty sure I made my bed every day without grumbling from the time I was 5 years old, I won’t count for a large margin of error on my estimation.

 

9. Garbage Bags with Legs

Do you know how many times I’ve had to say “Take out the garbage!  It is flowing all over the floor, it stinks and it growing maggots?” Too many.  It would be so much easier on my lung capacity if the garbage bags could take their own sniff and weigh test to determine when they should jump out of the can and march themselves straight to the dumpster.  Then they would automatically summon the next garbage bag to dutifully take its place in the empty garbage can.  Oh, that would be bliss.

 

10.  Talking Refrigerator

Instead of mommy having to say, “Hey, close the door, it’s been open so long the food is room temperature” the fridge would do my nagging for me.  It should be programmable to nag according to the needs of the frustrated matriarch or patriarch of the family to say such things as ~

“Did you eat your fruit and veggie quota for the day?”
“You spilled that milk, now wipe it up!  Pronto!  And don’t you sass me none!”
”That gum goes in the garbage can, not in here!  Last time you did that I had lime green smudges for weeks.’
”That pop is full of harmful chemicals and the carbonation decreases lung capacity.”

Since kids usually believe anybody other than their parents, a talking fridge would probably aid in the overall health of all of my children.

And if they listen to the fridge about their nutrition, I’ll add other instruction, as well.

”Go take out the garbage.  The maggots have to go.”
”Go make your bed.”
”Stop arguing with your siblings.”
”It’s your turn to clean the bathroom.”
”Stop eating in the living room.”
”Go find a kleenex!”

”Your mom?  No, I don’t know where to find your mom, her chocolate, scissors, pens or tape. I haven’t seen her since she got that Magic Carpet for Christmas.”

Yes, I’d truly be happy if I’d been given

What I Really Wanted for Christmas.