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I know everyone thinks their kids are unique and special, but sorry, your lot are all the same and equally useless. My kids, though, are extraordinary human beings, whose brains even I can't fathom. And I am a genius. So what does that make them?
Ernie has written his Christmas list for Santa and it is off the fucking charts. When I was a kid I asked for Mousetrap (never got) or a snooker table (did get) or a satsuma (I didn't ask but always got one). His list makes sense to him (and a little bit to me now I understand his motivation - which I'll mention later) but as someone on social media observed, this is like one of the shopping lists that Robert Popper used to post online.
He wants "A big box" - that's the first thing he wants. Top of his list. We say that kids will end up playing with the box that the expensive toy came in, and Ernie is cutting out the middleman. He just wants a big box. How big is big? That is for Santa to work out - thank God he takes charge of this because I'd be lost.
Second "Donuts" and in case you thought he wanted a big box of doughnuts - nope. He's put them in different colours just to ensure that misunderstanding does not entail. It's like he's writing a santa list whilst looking around the room and just putting down anything he sees. Doughnuts are nice though and it would be nice to have some of your own, though you have to eat them fairly quickly so not sure Christmas morning is the best time to fill up on doughnuts.
Then it gets tricky and bizarre "10 bottles of pretend gold". Why so many bottles? Why pretend gold? If Santa can bring you anything then why ask for pretend precious metals, weirdly stored in 10 bottles, which wouldn't be the first container I'd think of for gold. In fact if someone offered me gold in a bottle my first thought would be "Is that pretend gold?" If you want to pretend something is gold then don't put it in a bottle or your subterfuge is blown.
Catie is most perturbed by the bottled pretend gold, but I think Santa will be able to knock that up pretty easily. For me the most difficult item is the Crash Test Dummy. Ernie doesn't want a toy version or a mini-version or a member of the band. he wants a full size Crash Test Dummy, the same dimensions as an adult human.
He's adamant about this one. When I said I wasn't sure if Santa could get one of those, he correctly informed me that Santa can get you anything because he is magic. I said it might be too expensive for Santa but he correctly pointed out that Santa doesn't need money because he is magic. I said that I wasn't sure it would fit on his sleigh and Ernie correctly pointed out that Santa has a magic sack. He can fit all the toys for all the children in the world on there, a Crash Test Dummy is nothing.
It may feel to you like Ernie has come up with a list that is designed to test just how magic Santa actually is. Does he have some doubts about Santa and has thus written a list that only a truly magical being could procure?
I do not believe in that. Ernie's faith in Santa's ability to bring him everything on this list is absolute. The reason he wants these items is because he wants to do youtube videos where he pranks people by throwing a crash test dummy off of buildings or making them think they have a bottle of real gold or, I don't know, setting up a big box with a doughnut inside as a trap for gullible doughnut lovers.
His ideas of videos that he can make are as wildly impractical as his expectations of Santa. I am going to just believe that Santa comes good on this. I don't know what Catie is worried about. I'm not worried about 10 bottles of fake gold because I don't have to find it. Santa does. So Chillax Cates. It's fine.
My biggest fear is that the only way to get a crash test dummy is for me to dress up as one and then just front it out when Ernie starts throwing me off buildings. Anything for my kids.
RHLSTP Book Club with journalist Jonathan Freedland talking about his real-life thriller The Traitors Circle. It’s not about the TV show, but shows the terrible real-world consequences of failing to spot a traitor in your midst.
Listen here.
