Tis the season for a Digital Rebel XT.

All I want for Christmas is a $1,000 camera. It seems so silly when you put it in print, what with all the torment and poverty and reckless politics going on in our world. I'm compassionate to others in need, certainly, but I'm also aware of my own needs, specifically the need for a digital SLR camera and probably a coordinating tripod and telephoto lens. The reason for this is simple: I don't have one, and I want one.

In an effort to justify why I believe it's about time I got a huge enormous expensive present for Christmas, here are three incredibly horrifying stories brought to you by the ghost of my Christmas past. While in my heart I'm grateful for even the smallest crumb of goodwill my family and friends have bestowed upon me during the gifting seasons, my head sometimes says to myself, What the fuck? when I tear through gift wrap to find their confusing attempt at holiday cheer. This has happened many times to me, and I think it's about time I pick out my own presents.

1. For Christmas when I was 12 years old, I wanted a brown leather jacket à la Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. Don't you remember her jacket that she wore with the sleeves bunched up around her elbows, her coral lips accented by the upturned collar of chocolate leather resting against her milky neck? I wanted that stupid jacket and those coral lips and that stupid milky neck of hers, and I made a simple request for my parents to visit Wilson's House of Leather and purchase such a jacket for me from Santa.

And how they did. Or didn't, depending on who's telling the story. If you ask my dad, he'll tell you that they did go to Wilson's House of Leather and buy me a "classic" leather jacket that they felt appropriate for my age and personality. If you ask me, I'll tell you I awoke on Christmas morning to find a gleaming box from Wilson's under the tree which I promptly tore open to reveal a BRIGHT PURPLE SUEDE BLAZER with fringe along the sleeves and across the shoulders. This was no fucking Molly Ringwald jacket. It was something else entirely that my parents joyfully spent hundreds of dollars on.

As I tried on the jacket my dad said something to the effect of, "We saw it and just thought it was so you!" And I smiled and thought to myself, "GREAT, I'm a 12 year old girl and my parents think I'm a drag queen." I could see them picking out the fringed purple blazer and saying to the salesman at Wilson's, "That's for our little Sarah. She's 12, going on Ru Paul."

2. My first Christmas with a real live long term boyfriend and he buys me a soap basket and a book from the discount bin at Borders. I know it was from the discount bin because of the HUGE STICKER he left on the front that said "DISCOUNT! $3.99!" and also the fact that it was apparently missing the book jacket. Regardless, what really annoyed me was the soap, because by nature I am a very clean person. I shower daily, I wear nice smelling perfume, I even use this spray on my hair that takes away the smell of smog and smoke when I go to bars.

Soap is a gift you give to homeless people, or acquaintances, or your step children when you forget to bring them something from your cruise. It's not what you give to the 18 year old girl you're trying to, well, you know.

So it's Christmas and I'm excited because I spent a good deal of money on a meaningful and appropriately expensive gift for this boyfriend and he's just handed me a wicker basket full of soap that I have no idea what to do with. And being the 18 year old girl I am was, desperate for marriage and acceptance and breeding, I gasp with glee and take up the soap in the basket in my arms as if it were the baby Jesus himself. My boyfriend pats himself on the proverbial back and we all just go on with life, pretending everything is JUST FINE.

3. Two years ago I was casually dating a guy after a serious "relationship" ended and I had made it very clear that I wasn't interested in anything remotely committal from my new "boyfriend." Casual was our code word, meaning don't get too attached, and better yet, don't expect too much either. When Christmas rolled around I made plans to fly home and he was spending the season abroad, so the subject of a casual and noncommittal gift exchange never really came up.

Then on December 23rd a package arrived at my work addressed to me by hand in red Magic Marker. It was from "my boyfriend" who had shipped the box all the way from Europe where he was staying with his family. This was interesting since he'd taken time out of his vacation to purchase, wrap and mail me a gift in time for it to reach me by Christmas, this was far more serious than I ever expected from him, so I thought.

Excitedly, my co-workers gathered around while I sifted through the exotic la poste aérienne package, hoping to snag a bit of Toblerone or some real authentic Altoids. And then from the box I pulled what appeared to be a...coffee...mug. A coffee mug? That's right, but not just any coffee mug, a coffee mug that was painted with the profile of a large cartoon moose and a handle that took the shape of one enormous antler.

This was unbelievable. And wrapped in a large piece of green tinted cellophane stuffed into the moose mug were four Christmas-colored peanut M&M's. FOUR. Two red, two green, all peanut and nothing more. I carefully placed the M&M's on my desk and dumped the contents of the mug out, searching for the real gift he'd obviously hidden deep down in the Styrofoam packing, oh the kidder he was! But nothing! Nothing was left to find, it was just me and four peanut M&M's and a fucking coffee mug with moose antlers for a handle staring back at me as if *I* knew what to do next.

My boss laughed awkwardly and said, "Soooo...your boyfriend, huh?"

And I struggled to explain, "Oh we're just kind of casual right now."