Santa's elves

In 1988, my youngest sister really, really, really wanted an Oopsie Daisy doll from Santa for Christmas. She was 3 years old and this crawling, talking baby was the big thing among toddlers that year. Sort of like Tickle Me Elmo was in the mid-199os.

Not wanting to disappoint their youngest daughter, my parents searched high and low for this doll. We lived in Montreal at the time, and they couldn't find it anywhere. Finally, a few days before Christmas, they found out a store in Platsburg, NY (the shopping town just over the border) was getting a shipment. My dad made the hour and a bit drive the following Saturday to get it. The one small problem that day -- there was a blizzard, yet my dad drove through it (and home in it) to get his daughter an Oopsie Daisy doll.

Us girls were told this story years later and it's always been a good laugh in our family.

Last week, I sat my kids down to write their Santa letters. Austin, who at 4 years old, I discovered, still doesn't quite get the Santa thing. He gets that Santa will come and bring him presents, but he doesn't understand that this is his chance to ask for anything he wants. (Which maybe for me, is a good thing.)

So, as we're writing his letter, he's looking around the room at his toys trying to figure out what to ask for based on what he has. He asks for blocks (of which he has lots of) and then he hones in on his Lightning McQueen car and says "I want a Sally car". And I'm thinking, "what's a Sally car?" and then I realize, he wants the Sally character car from the Cars movie.

My first thoughts are along the lines of "oh crap, how am I going to find one of those."

I know that the Disney Store sells Cars Movie stuff, but usually the cars are in 10 packs, and I didn't want to spend $50 because Austin wanted one car.

So I checked Amazon dot com and sure enough, I could buy a single Sally car (with Linticular eyes and all) for less than $9 -- oh and pay about $20 in shipping to Canada. At that price, I might as well pay a little bit more and get a 10-pack of cars.

And that's when I got the idea to enlist some elves to help me.

My sister lives in California and my other sister (the one who wanted the Oopsie Daisy doll all those years ago) lives here in Toronto but was heading to California for a visit.

So I called up my sister in California and we hatched a plan. The car was sent to her (at about a $3 shipping fee) and my other sister will bring it back with her to Toronto when she comes home. And then I'll just have to pick it up.

Sometimes Santa has to be a little creative. And years from now, I'm sure Austin will get a laugh out of the fact that it took two aunts to get one toy to him.