Thanks For Nothing, Santa!

It had all been a bit stressful, but with the help of online shopping and using every spare minute to get what I needed, I was all done shopping.  I was so happy!  I wanted to stop shopping and start drinking ... hot chocolate.

It had been challenging, but I felt like I had tried my best to make sure all the gifts were fair for each of my three children.  With different ages, this can be hard, but I felt like I had worked it all out.

And then it happened.

My daughter came home from school and told me excitedly that Santa had gone to her class that day.  She told me that she asked him for a Christmas Barbie doll, and that he told her he would get it for her.  She said, and I quote: "I know I'll get it because Santa said so."  She was very happy.

I, on the other hand, was not.

Let's just say I wasn't feeling very festive for the next few moments.

What was I going to do?  I had all the Santa gifts sorted out!  If I added one thing for one child, it would send everything off course.  But my daughter still believes in Santa and I'm not going to be the one to wreck it for her.

I finally figured out that I could have the doll be from her mom and dad, and just say that Santa knew she was going to get it so he didn't need to get it for her.

Then I went looking for the doll (which, incidentally, she hadn't mentioned wanting ever before).

And it was nowhere. Absolutely nowhere!  It was sold out in every store I tried.

One salesgirl told me that she didn't know if it would be in, but I should just continue to check back into the store every day.

I almost lost it.  I wanted to say to her, 'Do you honestly think I have time for that?  I work full-time and I have three kids and we live in every hockey arena in town!  Honestly!  We don't stay at our house, we just drive from one arena to the other and grab snacks on the way!'

Luckily for the salesgirl this all happened in my head.

Anyway, I was getting desperate.  I couldn't even find it online; it was out of stock everywhere.

Finally I had a friend who is a shopping whiz help me.

We managed to find it in the U.S.  I bought it for a ridiculous price even though I had to accept that it may not be shipped in time for Christmas.

Thank you, Amazon, because I received it yesterday.  I love you!

As for you, Santa - thanks for nothing!