Christmas Past

When my oldest daughter was almost three, Baby All Gone was the only item on her Christmas wish list. Each and every party we attended that involved presents also involved a temper tantrum when the little trinket she opened was not this doll. I don't know how many of you remember this doll, but it is now easier to purchase this plastic baby on e-bay than it was that holiday season of 1991. My mother, eager to be the miracle worker, hit every store in the Western New York area. And she found it. She convinced the store manager at a JC Penney catalogue only store in Lockport, to box up the one in the store window as its mere presence was driving the employees crazy. The doll was impossible to get by Christmas and to have it in the shop was nothing short of mockery to many a mother and child.

So Christmas at Beachie's arrives and Amanda is fully expecting to find Baby All Gone under the tree. She has asked for only one gift and this is the first Christmas that she fully understands the "true meaning of Christmas" - ask and you shall receive. My mom is the hero, the BEST EVER. The bottle is refilled, the cherries are slurped, the diapers are chan....

STOP! The baby doesn't wet? What do you mean she doesn't wet? My little peanut has provided Baby All Gone with countless bottles, just where is all that milk going? Thankfully, for my mom, it took Amanda three or four days to figure this out. My little genius realizes that the doll does not have the properties of a real baby and she is feeling betrayed. Truly.

And so was I. The Baby All Gone Christmas taught me a huge lesson about buying my children exactly what they "had to have." I learned that there was no toy really worth the effort my mom put into finding that gift, that the BEST toy, gizmo, or trinket was eventually going to the bottom of the toy box. That Christmas taught me not to be an East Amherst Mommy.

I drag out that memory each and every year and am very grateful my children do not beg for the impossible. As they have gotten older, their requests are more within the realm of reason and they no longer feel short changed when comparing themselves to the neighbors. But I remember Baby All Gone. May she rest in peace.