Enough serious stuff. I have finally gotten my head around the holidays and spent yesterday morning trudging from store to store with a folded up list zipped up in the pocket of my Land’s End down jacket.

Question of the Day: What’s on your shopping list?

Some items on mine. (more later)

For My Brother, Sister, and Cousins Conversation and Booze. We get the grandparents to watch the kids and eat a lot of good food in a nice restaurant.

For My Single Friend Who Always Buys Stuff For My Kids And Gets Gyped in the Present Department Stila Makeup. Eye Shadow Trio Chamomile Stila is hip, has great colors, and comes in nice packages. This isn’t the exact compact. Anthropologie has one with a cuter case.

For a Three Year Old Boy He’s easy. It’s all about trains, so I got a good deal on an electric Thomas set from TJ Maxx. Ian has inherited the wooden ones from his brother, but he should get something new, too, so we’ve moved on to electric. Both of my kids have spent hours playing with these toys. We encourage them to set up the tracks on their own in different configurations every morning. Even though we don’t understand everything that he’s saying, we can hear Ian whispering out little stories as he’s playing with the trains. They usually involve a crash and certain disaster at the end of trackline. Sometimes it involves a train taking the plunge down the old radiator hole in our kitchen floor down to the basement below. We’re trying to discourage that one.

For the 6 Year Old Boy This is getting harder. I went to Crap R’ Us and all they have for six year old boys are gameboys and action figures. We’re not totally against video games, but we reserve them for the computer. That way he has to negotiate for time on it and he plays the historic role playing stuff with his father. Jonah has some knight action figures that are pretty nice, but he doesn’t need anymore. And I hate all the action figures associated with the Cartoon Network, like the Power Rangers. Badly made and designed. Legos are always good, but he’s got one bucket of them which is quite enough. We’ll have to think more about that one.

For the Mother in Law I went to Chico’s which is geared for her age and body type. Apparently, the company has been doing well. Big nubby sweaters with lots of doo-dads on them really appeal to that demographic. I just can’t see spending 90 bucks on a doo-dad sweater, so I’m going to look elsewhere.