This year, however, we had a bit of a Christmas Eve crisis. I spent ages picking out the perfect Santa gift for Mary. It was of good quality, cute, pink, understated but fun, and the perfect size--big enough to be exciting on Christmas morning but small enough to fit in her room. In fact, a few weeks ago I even rearranged Mary's room in anticipation of this gift. We ordered the present weeks ago, noted that it had come, then hid it in the basement.
On Christmas Eve we pulled it all the way out of the box--and realized we'd accidentally ordered the wrong thing! We had ordered the BOY version.
So I did what any mom would do, and I completely FREAKED OUT! PANICKED!!! DECLARED IT THE END OF THE WORLD!! But it was for good reason: We were both sitting there staring at Mary's ruined Christmas.
Now, I'd like to say there is no reason why Mary could not and should not be perfectly happy with the boy version of a very cool toy. Before I knew and loved Mary, I would have thought, "My daughter can stand to play with one thing that is not pink. And she will like it! Whether she wants to or not!!" In fact, I would have purposely NOT ordered the pink version. But the thing is that now I do know Mary, and I love her, and I respect her. Mary sees the world in black and white, and sometimes that means she sees the world in pink and blue.
I knew exactly how she would respond. She would immediately recognize the gift as something for a boy. She would be confused, thinking Santa had accidentally brought David two gifts. Upon hearing it was for her, and upon hearing our desperate explanations of how cool it was, she would be polite and put on a good face. But I knew, deep down, she would hate it. She would resent it. She would probably play with it--but every time she did, she would wish it were pink. She would wonder why she is the one girl in the world who got stuck with a boy's toy for Christmas. She would know it would be wrong to express displeasure, so she would internalize it all, suffering in silence.
It was the worst year for this to happen! A couple of years ago, we could have just given her a balloon and she would have been happy. Or, a couple of years from now, we could just explain the situation on Christmas morning and promise that the right thing was coming in the mail in a day or two. Sure, it would be anti-climatic and a little disappointing. But not devastating.
As it was this year, Greg and I were sitting there staring into that big Amazon box--and we were looking at Mary's broken heart.
Greg, fortunately, is a man of action. And his guilt (it was technically he who had ordered the wrong thing) prompted him to action. But what can you do at 9:45 at night on Christmas Eve?? (This is why I was writhing in despair.) Well, Greg called ToysRUs to see if they were still open. They said they were supposed to be open until 10:00, but it was so slow they were thinking of closing right then. Greg told them he was on his way and please stay open!
What does a dad do with 5 minutes in a picked over super commercial toy store? A dad who feels guilty, a dad who loves his daughter with all of his heart and wants to spare her any disappointment and only wants to bring her a little happiness on Christmas morning?
He comes home with the biggest, brightest (did I mention BIGGEST) Barbie dollhouse the world has seen. And then he stays up until one in the morning assembling it.
Really, I pretty much hate it. Except that I pretty much love it. It reminds me of her father's love, her dad who jumped into the car late Christmas Eve determined to spare his daughter's heart. The magic of it all is that it's exactly what Mary would have really wanted. Not some tasteful, high-quality, wood-crafted toy her practical mother picked out. Whether I like it or not, Mary really likes to play with Barbies and princesses. She has been lamenting that they have no place to live (which is why they have been living in the Christmas tree). I told her they could live in a box under her bed. (Since there's no way I'd ever buy her a Barbie dollhouse!!) It's almost as if Santa Claus is real--and he made sure Mary would get something she REALLY wanted. That her Christmas dreams would come true.
