READ XMAS DREAMIN’: AN ILLUSTRATED 8TH GRADE WISH LIST IN ITS ENTIRETY

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This is my illustrated Xmas wish list from 1992, when I was in 8th grade.

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In my many years before 1992, I had made extensive, written lists of things I wanted for Xmas.

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I would go into painstaking detail, describing the type of music I wanted to hear, the clothes I wanted to wear, the objects I wanted to surround me. But words just weren’t enough.

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My mom/Santa was always getting gifts that were cheaper, lesser versions of what I wanted, or not getting them at all.

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As an 8th grader, I desperately needed to try a new, fresh approach to gift-asking, as 1993 would be my graduation from middle school. It was essential to enter high school as the part-grunge, part-anime, part-hippie chick I knew I was inside. Xmas gifts were my chance to re-invent myself – the gateway to a truer (cooler) me.

READ XMAS DREAMIN’: AN ILLUSTRATED 8TH GRADE WISH LIST IN ITS ENTIRETY

Alyssa Sorresso is a creative non-fiction writer who loves telling stories out loud. She has performed her stories internationally and in Chicago. Her work has been published in Creative Nonfiction (Magazine) and online, including at Queen Mob’s Teahouse and Ohio Edit. Her essay "Don't Borrow Trouble" was listed as "Notable" in The Best American Essays 2015.