|
I'm dreaming of a green Christmas |
| Print |
|
Email
|
Maybe next year.
During a major clearout in November, we unearthed so many ‘pre-loved’ toys, we had to hire our
Streetcar club car to ferry them to the charity shop. We
therefore vowed to practice restraint this Christmas, but is it fair to
make the children pay for the sins of the fathers (and mothers)?
Note: if you’re giving away toys, make very sure
your child has truly outgrown them. As we were patting ourselves on the
back,
our daughter asked where Diego was. Diego, a sweet, if plain, dog (a
bit like Old Yeller) had languished in the bottom of a toy box for
months, but was suddenly an object of fierce desire.
I rushed to the charity shop the next day, where I spied
dozens of our donated cuddlies awaiting loving homes, but alas, no
Diego. I
was baffled – he’s just a generic dog, not a name brand or character
toy on the ‘must-have’ Christmas shopping lists. Perhaps in this
Disneyfied age
there’s a yearning for normal toys.
A friend in America had bought Diego, so there was no hope
of replacing him without revealing to said friend that we’d given him the boot. When my daughter arrived home from school, I
improvised: “Diego’s  gone travelling.” (More trendy than joining the circus). The next day a postcard arrived from Diego, with a drawing of his new
friends. She wanted to believe, but I could see the doubt in
her eyes.
Christmas for us meant a train trip to visit the
inlaws
and lashings of fine fayre – and the flu. Luckily there wasn’t a
complete dearth of toys, and one relative produced a small,
golden-coloured
cuddly dog.
Despite a nametag which reads ‘Monty’, he's now ‘Diego’.
Result!
Unfortunately, a last-minute panic buy means we’re also the proud
grandparents of a plastic-fantastic rocket (complete with a loud
American
mission control voice). I admit, the kids love
it, but we must do better next year. And don't get me started on the
generic Barbie-clone hairstyling head a well-meaning relative popped
onto our
daughter's pressie pile. It's the stuff of nightmares, feminist and
ecological. Next year, when I sit on Father Christmas's lap, I'm
going to give him an earful.
|
