I’m ready.

Roaring fire? Check.
Coffee? Check.
Laptop? Check.
Mental shopping list? Check.

Aaaaaaannnd….. Nothing.

I know exactly what my kids want from Santa this year, but I have yet to purchase a single thing. I am utterly baffled by all these toy recalls. I am sitting here, trying to spend my hard-earned money, but I am frozen.

Yes, I know, I should buy local toys. Nice, handmade, wooden or knitted things, right? Maybe if they were babies. Maybe if I hadn’t already ruined them with 243,067 cumulative hours of commercials on Nickelodeon. Maybe if they liked art, or the idea of feeding a goat to starving children. But the ugly truth is, they don’t. They want plastic lead-coated toys, and I don’t. know. what. to. do.

I mean, can we just be honest here? I have a huge propensity for giving and I do my damndest to impart it on my kids all year long. We shop the giving tree. We give to the food pantry. We gather up toys and clothes and bring them to people in person, whether locally or in another state, so that my kids can see the need and gratitude in their faces. I try to do things that they can understand, broken down on their level, in addition to the stuff I do on my own, without them, usually anonymously, all year long. I do pro bono writing work for a local charity. We do service work all the time. I’m a huge believer in shopping (and thinking) locally, while acting globally. I do this all. year. long. But on Christmas morning – and I’m just gonna put it out there – my kids don’t want to open packages filled with books and sock puppets.

So. Even if I had a doctorate in Keeping-up-with-all-the-recalls, it would not protect me from the stuff that has yet to be recalled, and recall-worthy stuff is still being pumped out every day. Don’t believe me? Check this, and this. Or how about this AP-wire headline just today, claiming,

“Tests on more than 1,200 children’s products, most of them still on store shelves, found that 35 percent contain lead — many with levels far above the federal recall standard used for lead paint.”

AREYOUFUCKINGKIDDINGME????

Today’s new toy is tomorrow’s recall, it really is. And you can’t trust anyone.

So what the hell am I gonna do??

The coffee has gone cold, and I am nowhere further than I was yesterday. I’m running out of time. I need answers, real answers, answers that can be implemented. I need Christmas morning magic.

I need a miracle.