List-ful thinking

My grandmother turns into a list bully around October.
She lives in the Land Between the Lakes, but she and I call back and forth quite often. Without fail, she springs the question on me each fall.
“So, you got your Christmas list ready?”
Say what?! Christmas? In October, I’m up to my jack-o-lanterns in homemade Halloween costumes. But my grandmother’s been contributing faithfully to her Christmas Club account at the bank, and after ten months of saving, it’s burning a hole in her bank book. She always wants a list from me, my husband and my kids. If I can’t produce, it’s Sears gift cards for us.
Of course, kids just write down anything they could ever want, regardless of how difficult it may be to acquire since, after all, Santa handles those logistics.
However, not everything on a grown-up Christmas list is easy for grandmothers to come by. I would never send her to the Paducah mall for a Bjork CD or ask her to fork over big bucks for my coveted 10-inch Wustof chef’s knife. That’s for husbands to do, not grandmas.
So, not meaning to patronize, I write some, let’s say, less coveted items I wouldn’t mind having, mainly to make my grandmother’s life easier. I tell her I need a new white turtleneck or a UT sweatshirt because mine is all pilled and, yes, I promise that’s all I really want for Christmas. Based on these lists, I’m sure she thinks I am the most boring person on earth.
For Christmas, I try to think of what my relatives enjoy, trust my own taste and hope they agree. I don’t ask for Christmas lists because I think shaking down a family member for a list reduces gift-giving to running errands for them, as in, “I picked up that white turtleneck you said you wanted. Oh, and Merry Christmas!”
Of course, that’s not what Nanaw’s doing. She’s just trying to get something she can be proud to send, something she’s confident we’ll enjoy. If she reads this, I’m confident I’ll get a coal-filled stocking upside the head.
I have been keeping a list of gifts I’ve already received this Christmas, such as my next-door neighbor’s kind attempt to help us light our luminaries with his propane torch. Watching the side of that first bag turning black and the sand melting will be a treasured memory.
The Loveless Café’s mail-order business has been a blessing, as are the Bakers Bridge Avenue shortcut home from the mall and cookie-baking with my boys. I do wish we didn’t end up with so many Cyclops snowman cookies from my little comedian cookie bakers.
Maybe I’ll put that on my list for next year.