About ten years ago the movie Jingle all the Way came out. It was a fun, amusing Christmas movie. After another year or so it came out on video. On day around 2001 or 2001 my youngest went on a kick like little ones do and watched that movie every day. He loved the Turboman character. That year (he was 7 or 8) all he wanted for Christmas was a Turboman action figure. Oh, shit. That stuff had been off the market for several years. We tried to explain, but he would only reply that Santa could get it for him. Double shit.
We steered him to other stuff, but when Christmas came and there was no Turboman, he was disappointed. He even said so. Thus began the great Turboman hunt. We went to toy collectors, eBay, even enlisted people to help to no avail. Finally about two months later we found a new Turboman, in the box on eBay. It was expensive. We had it sent.
The youngest has always been pretty smart, he taught himself to read before kindergarten. He read the first Harry Potter book in the first grade, much of it out loud to me. It took him nearly a year, but he got it done. I knew we had to be tricky with this.
So I typed a letter from Santa, made up some North Pole letterhead, Christmas tree border and everything. In it, Santa explained that he was sorry he did not deliver the Turboman at Christmas, but the elves no longer made that toy. The head elf had had to dig out the blueprints and order the parts. Santa apologized and hoped my son would have a Merry Christmas a little late. I slit the flap of the box and slid the letter in. When the little one came home from school we said he had received a mysterious box in the mail.
He nearly crapped. I have never seen a kid so thrilled. As an added bonus it got us another year or two of Santa. In the end, I think it worked out even better than if we had found the toy at Christmas. This remains one of my favorite "Christmas" memories.
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