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Monday, December 12, 2005Nick Medina wants only one thing this Christmas, and his mother, Deborah Palmisano, would like nothing more than to provide it. But things aren't looking too good for the 12-year-old Ravenna boy. That's because his Christmas list boasts an Xbox 360, a game system that was released last month and quickly disappeared from store shelves. Palmisano, 40, has searched ev-erywhere, but has had no luck finding the system. ``I'm praying to God that around Christmas, they'll start shipping more out,'' she said. ....The situation brings back memories of the 1990s, when she scrambled from store to store to find another son all five Power Ranger action figures. Eventually, she found them. She said some of that was fun; this isn't. Palmisano said she could have handled things better if Microsoft had released the product during a different season. ``Making it a major Christmas toy and then sitting on the product, yeah, that's made me kind of angry,'' she said. ``They don't think about how this is going to ruin people's Christmas. It makes the parents feel like failures. It makes the kids feel even worse.'' The story is actually about whether or not Microsoft has created a pseudo-shortage of these toys, but to give it a human interest and local angle, the paper has concentrated on this one child and his mother's reaction to not being able to get it. You have to feel sorry for the kid. He's never quoted in the story, but the print version is accompanied by two photographs of him looking heart broken. It makes him look like one of those kids from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory who met horrible fates because of their bad behavior. But the true culprit here is his mom. She's the one who measures Christmas by the ability to meet material expectations and who is teaching him to do the same. May be she should listen to Johnny Cash's Christmas, or better yet, Reverend Gates. posted by Sydney on 12/12/2005 08:48:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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