While Alexis' school wants the Secret Santa gift exchange to be a simple affair, Alexis wants to make everything complicated. She is a girl, after all, and if any creature can make a simple thing complicated, it's a girl.
I spent 30 minutes walking up and down and up and down the aisles of Target with Alexis in search of the absolute perfect gift for the exchange. With a $5 spending limit, the choices were few and far between. I think that just made it harder for the poor kid because she was determined to get A LOT out of those $5. And by A LOT, I mean she was determined to make me so insane that I would throw ALL OF THE THINGS in the cart in a desperate ploy to get the hell out of Target.
It almost worked. ALMOST.
Finally she picked out some Squinkies that she is certain her friend will like and we went along our merry way. I was a bit crazier than I was before that shopping spree, but she was a whole lot happier. Funny how that so often turns out to be a tradeoff.
When we returned home, Alexis was eager to wrap that Secret Santa gift. So was I. I love to wrap gifts far more than is probably reasonable. To be honest, I felt I had earned the right to complicate the hell out of wrapping that gift. If I have to spend 30 minutes listening to a short person try to make a decision, by golly, I'm going to spend 30 minutes wrapping that decision in shiny paper and sparkly ribbons. I'm a girl. I'm good at that complicating things thing.
Alexis and I marched up the stairs to pick out some wrapping paper. I keep it stashed neatly in the guest room closet along with all sorts of odds and ends. Alexis looked through all of the wrapping paper choices and looked again and looked again and OMG SHE TRIED TO MAKE ME RELIVE THE TARGET NIGHTMARE.
JUST PICK SOME DAMN PAPER, KID.
Ahem.
Eventually, she made a choice and then indicated that she would pick out some ribbon to match. I blinked a few times and then leapt into action.
"Nope! I'll pick the ribbon! IT'S MY TURN TO PICK SOMETHING, KID." As I bent down to dig through the bin filled with sparkly ribbons, Alexis waited semi-patiently with the wrapping paper in hand.
And then the hammer fell on my head.
Not literally. Figuratively.
"Momma, why are there American Girl Doll books up there?"
AGGLE FLAGGLE KLABBABLE.
Santa bought a few extra books months and months ago when she was in Chicago. Santa stashed those books way up high on a shelf in that closet months and months ago. Santa had them really well hidden, but had just recently shifted things around a bit, making the books visible to certain short people who weren't supposed to see them because they were supposed to end up in her stocking on Christmas morning.
Santa was not amused, mostly because Santa realized that she is going to have to go out and find a few replacement stocking stuffers while all of the rest of the world is out shopping. SANTA HATES CROWDS.
Girls are really good at making simple things complicated.
