Mom: The Ruiner of Holiday Dreams

There’s nothing like destroying your child’s Christmas wishes that makes you feel like the meanest mom in the whole wide world.

For the past few months, when we ask six-year-old MJ what she wants Santa to get her, the answer is always an Easy-Bake Oven. I should be thrilled my child is unleashing her creativity and her inner Guy Fieri, but instead, I’m crushing her spirit, just like the New York Times did to Fieri when they skewered his new restaurant.

So, when MJ requests an Easy-Bake, my standard response is: “You have an Easy-Bake Oven, MJ. It’s called an oven.”

My objections to this classic holiday gift are as follows:

• MJ is a total junk food addict. Giving her an Easy-Bake Oven is like air-dropping a crack house into her bedroom. Why hit the streets to score whoopee pies when you can just cook them up at home?

• It comes down to simple mathematics. A box of red velvet cake mix is $1 on sale and feeds a family of four. A package of Easy-Bake Oven red velvet cupcake mix is $6.99 and feeds a family of four pixies. I know you can find homemade recipes for the Easy-Bake, but MJ is a child of branding, and only the cookie mix in the purple package in the toy aisle is going to cut it.

• The Easy-Bake Oven is the starter drug for a lifetime of hoarding abandoned kitchen appliances. Buy one glittery cooker at age six, and soon you’re throwing out cans of corn from your cabinet to house your George Foreman Grill/Big Top Donut/Ronco Pasta Maker/NuWave Digital Oven.

Although I think all of these are strong reasons on their own, my main reason is a selfish one.

I’m not a crafty person. I don’t decoupage with my kids or sew them homemade Halloween costumes. Instead, like generations of German ancestors before me, I show my love by stuffing exorbitant amounts of rouladen and strudel down my loved ones’ pie holes.

Lazy Sunday afternoons are my one day to cook a homemade meal with my two mini sous chefs. Whether they’re cracking eggs for brownies or scooping flour for Guinness stew, my kids are learning valuable subjects like measurements and mathematics while they stir, sift, pour and taste – just like I did as I sat on a step stool at the counter next to my mom and grandma.

Most important, the control freak in me can keep a lid on the messes if I have my kids captive in the kitchen with me. The image I have in my head of the flour-coated damage two little girls could cause with a bag of pretzel dipper mix, a cup of water and a child-assessable heat source gives me the shivers.

While I have purchased numerous Easy-Bake Ovens for other girls in my life, I put the kibosh on one for our own house since I am apparently the meanest mom in the whole wide world ever.

But 20 years from now when MJ is baking for her own family, I hope the memories of our Sunday afternoon cooking sessions stick with her. Otherwise, she’s free to buy her own Easy-Bake Oven and Arrietty­-sized cake pans.

Now if I can only steer her away from the ICEE Slushy Machine.

By Nicole Plegge, Lifestyle Blogger for SmartParenting

Metro East mom Nicole Plegge is the lifestyle and pop culture blogger for SmartParenting. Besides working full time for a local nonprofit and raising two daughters and a husband, Nicole's greatest achievements are finding her misplaced car keys each day and managing to leave the house in a stain-free shirt. Her biggest regret is never being accepted to the Eastland School for Girls.