Raise your hand if your stomach did flip-flops when the Sears Wish Book arrived in the mailbox. Raise your hand if you ever dog-eared pages and pages of wishes, making endless lists for Santa because clearly Santa shopped at Sears. In fact, in my kid brain, I may well have thought that Santa owned Sears and we were just lucky mortals who got to peek into his boundless reserve of toys and goodies. Those were the days.

In fact, as I am writing this, my hub looks over my shoulder and points out that he got that very Pooh pictured above for Christmas and it is now in a box in our garage.

I found myself enjoying a lot of nostalgia this year. Considering the things that brought me joy at my daughter’s age - ping pong, atari, and merlin. Back then Santa’s job was simple. Just phone in an order and pick up at the local Sears “store” which was nothing more than a smallish scuffed room with a tall counter running the width.

Sears books mounted on the counter. Behind all that was a well-worn double door with foggy glass. The door would swing and the resulting whoosh would smell of corrugated fiber and newness. Boxes stacked floor to ceiling under buzzing bluish bulbs.

This year my mailbox was stuffed daily with catalogs. I finally had to make a point to sort mail upon receipt. If I piled a few days mail, it inevitably melted across the counter leaving a glossy trail of things truly not needed.

I tried to find a catalog that might give my daughter the same thrill but alas the bounty netted none. Finally the week of Christmas my mailbox was gloriously empty leaving my recycle bin gloriously empty. But yesterday it started all over again and I could barely contain all the offers for year-end clearances. Rather than the thrill of the Wish Book, I began to wish not to have so many books.

Then I remembered Liselle and Amy giving a nod to Catalog Choice. So I piled up my catalogs, opened my account and started to opt out.

Perhaps next year I will be able to gain back a little of my treasured time by not having to sort so much mail and by not having to use so much gas to drive those unwanted catalogs to the recycle facility. Sounds like a good wish to me.

Peace out,

Cheryl