the Barbie Jammin Jeep

Behold the power of the well produced television commercial. Ask Ella what she wanted for Christmas, and she'd tell anyone just one thing: "the Barbie Jammin Jeep." She really didn't even know what it did, but it was pink and the music on the commercial was fun and the little girls were riding and dancing and that's what she wanted.

She told Santa this. (twice) She told friends, family, babysitters, and her parents this multiple times. We've had several talks about this jeep, how it's really big and Santa only has so much room in his sleigh, how it's meant for outside and this is winter in Kansas so it would be months before she could ride in it, how many other fun things she might like??? She bought none of it.

This is a nearly $300 dollar motorized jeep, for a 3 year-old, and I'm unemployed this Christmas, so we decided Santa might have to focus on a few other gifts for miss Ella. It didn't help that baby brother had a little push car under the tree, she wasn't thrilled with her fairy tent, even the dance cam that lets her sing karaoke and watch herself on TV wasn't a big enough hit to take away the sting when Santa failed to deliver her jeep.

We were only half way through the gifts, when she was already telling us she was "having a rough Christmas" morning, and asking if we could take the tent back and get her Barbie jammin jeep instead.

This was really tough for us. This was the first Christmas Ella has really "got it." She picked her gift for Alex with great care, she made a wonderful gift and gave it to us, she sat on Santa's lap for the first time, etc... It broke our hearts that Santa might not be able to come through for her with her big request, but we also felt it was important to set some boundaries and cash was still tight this year.

(A side note: she had waited in bed for 4 hours on Christmas Eve. She sat in the dark, silent, just "listening for the jingling on the roof mommy!" Santa made two trips to our house that night. The first time, Ella was still awake, so he left the other gifts and told her he'd stop back by on his way home to the North Pole, but she had to go to sleep to get her gifts. Finally she dozed off sometime around midnight.)

So we made it over the hump, but even two weeks after Christmas when the teacher or my friend Kim asked her "what did Santa bring you?" her answer was simple and direct, "not the Barbie Jammin Jeep." What really pushed it over the top, I think, was when she told papa, "I must not have been very good."

So then she broke her wrist, and didn't want the splint, etc... and Papa promised to bring her a surprise when they came up the following weekend to celebrate a belated Christmas, if she'd take good care of her splint. (I suggested Pop-Tarts.)

I still don't know exactly how he fit all the pieces and parts of that pink jeep into his 4 door Buick. I know they had to take it out of the box and stash bits of it everywhere, but when he carried in that pink car carcass with the purple wheels, a little girl believed in Santa again. She was up at 6:30 the next morning, for her appointment to get a cast, but she sat in the drivers seat while I fixed her hair, put on shoes, etc... She even picked a hot pink cast to match her new wheels.

Papa explained that Santa just ran out of room in his sleigh and so he asked papa to drive it to Ella's house. I guess she'll be sitting on Santa's lap again next year,.We're just working on a request for something smaller next time around.

Christmas isn't about what you receive, of course, but explaining that for a 3 year-old who just realized that Santa is brining her stuff, it not so simple.

Oh, and baby Alex loves it too, they sit in the jeep, in my living room, listening to the radio with no idea they should be driving it around outside, if it gets back up above freezing soon!