A Story Behind the Story: Christmas Lists

Isaac Martin on Unsplash

Yesterday, Frazzled published my most recent humor piece, In Case You Don't Know What I Want for Christmas, Here is My List. I began this before Thanksgiving, planning to write a profound essay about how my immediate family members share wish lists for Christmas and birthdays and how these are this meaningful way to keep in touch about our lives and interests when we don't see each other regularly. (I, personally, curate my list all year round.)

Within 24 hours my original idea shifted into a child's Christmas list, and I never looked back.

I felt bad about tinkering with it over Thanksgiving weekend, when I'd planned to commit to holiday time with my husband. But then the piece was accepted for publication, and I felt better.

Writing Humor and In Case You Don't Know What I Want for Christmas

I started out just making a list of random things a child might want, which is a legitimate starting point. But with humor as humor, you need two things. Which I mention because I didn't know that when I started writing this kind of humor a few years ago.

• You need escalation, rising action.
• You need something like a climax, for those of us who started out writing traditional fiction. You need a kicker of an ending. I feel there is a term for this I don't recall.

Randomness does not help provide either of those two things.

I came up with the idea for children believing Santa will bring them something big, which, of course, he will not since he doesn't exist, putting parents on the spot. But I still needed something else.

I needed Minecraft. I needed Minecraft. Minecraft is a unifying element in this piece and helped me tremendously in terms of generating material and escalating what was going on.

I chose Minecraft because we have a family member seriously into it now, and thus I could write what I knew. Or what I know about what he knows. But it didn't have to be Minecraft, of course. It could have been K-pop Demon Hunters. It could be anything. Except for Pokemon. We've moved past that.

Is There Something Profound Here After All?

I feel that this piece is about obsession and relentless marketing to children. But, as a family member often tells me, "You think too much."

I, too, obsess.