Best Christmas Gift Ever

So, because I'm a materialistic heathen, I'm going to write about one of my favorite Christmas pressies instead of the joy and love of the season. Yeah!!! I'm like that.

When I was about 8 years old, Cabbage Patch Kids emerged on the scene. And oh holy crap did I need to have one. I neeeeeeeeeeeeeeded one. To add extra pain, my friend, Mandy, had one called Joelle Alicia or something like that. She had blond/brown hair and blue eyes and she wore a yellow dress with white shoes. Not that those details were at all important enough for me to remember 20+ years later.

Obviously, if Mandy had one, I needed one, too. The yearning was unbearable. Torturous. Excruciating. All I ever wanted in life was to become the mother of a baby born in a cabbage. And I was not shy about telling my parents this. I was only shy around other people--my parents and brother saw the true, far more obnoxious, me. So I asked and pleaded time and again for a baby birthed in leafy vegetables.

At one point, my mom suggested that I pray to God for one, because God has a way of answering prayers. Hm. Interesting strategy, I thought. So I tried it, to no avail. I prayed for days and days but no ugly-but-cute nylon doll showed up. Not ever. Things were getting desperate. So I thought about it and decided these times called for strategy as desperate as the need I felt. I decided to use the God Card. I mean, hey. Mom started it, so it was totally justified that I use it, too.

The plot unfurled. I approached my mom one night while she was preparing dinner. I specifically remember looking at the stove while I unleashed my strategy--the top of the stove came up to about my mouth--I was shorter then, you see. Here's what I said: "Mom, I have been praying and praying so hard for a Cabbage Patch Kid, but God STILL hasn't given me one. Why not?" So innocent. So sweet. So conniving.

Mom suggested that I just keep trying, that sometimes it takes awhile. Hmph. God was playing the 'be patient' card, eh? And Mom had a dodge for my strategy. No good.

But then. Not too long later, my grandparents were visiting and I was across the street playing with Mandy. Probably with her treasured Cabbage Patch Kid. Oh, the jealousy. My brother came to find me to tell me that my parents wanted to talk to me.

Yulp. That couldn't be good. They didn't interrupt my play for nothing, so as I walked home, I ran through a list of potential offenses that could be at root of my imminent punishment. I walked in the front door, and there was Mom and Dad with my grandparents. In the room was a big garbage bag. Mom told me that I was getting an early Christmas present (it was probably late summer/early fall), and that it was in the garbage bag.

You can guess what happened next. I got Danya Karlotta, who had red hair, green eyes, and wore a pink knit dress with white shoes. I nearly peed my pants from joy. And it turns out, it was my little plot that had made it all happen. Mom and Dad decided they didn't want me to drift into atheism just because God didn't get me my Cabbage Patch Kid, so they took immediate action and gave me the doll. Sweeeeeeeeeet. They chose not to tell me that till later, and similarly I did not confess my little strategy until after I was an adult. We all lived in blissful ignorance that we had outsmarted one another.

And I got a Cabbage Patch Kid (the first of three, actually). And that year, on Christmas Day, I got a whole bunch of homemade clothes for her. Life was good.