Today, while blog-hopping for inspiration, I found this really great book called A Year of Mornings: 3191 Miles Apart. This book started as a blog between two cross-country photographer friends. They each pledged to take (and post) one photograph a day. So the book is a collection of these photographs shown side-by-side. What a fun concept, right!?

So I do what I usually do when I find an awesome book I want but am too poor to buy right now, and I put it on my Amazon Wish List. I then caught myself thinking “Mmmm…this would be a great thing to put on my Hanukkah Wish List.” Then I caught myself wondering, is it weird that I’m 26 years old and still write a Hanukkah Wish List!?!?!?!

As a child, I ALWAYS had a Hanukkah List. They usually started around October and would grow and grow exponentially, until I had filled up both sides of the lined, loose leaf paper with scribbles and misspellings. Literally, I would add EVERY fun toy I saw on TV or in the aisles of Toys R Us, from October through December. Of all the toys, I’d usually get around 7 (one for each of the eight nights, minus one; the last night we always gave a gift to charity and play games together as a family). Anyway, this has pretty much been the Hanukkah List pattern since I could write. And now, at the age of 26, I can’t break the habit. These days I don’t write out my desires in magic marker on the running list hanging my then eye-level (adult knee-level) on the refrigerator. These days I email my Mom a list of 5-6 items or so; usually books, magazine subscriptions, or cool tech toys.

I guess that as adults we have more control over acquiring the things we want. If I want the first season of Freaks and Geeks, I don’t have to wait six months for a birthday or holiday. I can pretty much just type in my credit card numbers to Amazon and it will come to my door five days later. (This is of course, assuming I have any disposable income left over after rent, gas, student loans, cell phone, and my cupcake/fresh flowers/new music budget).

And now I can’t stop wondering what ages normal people stopped writing Wish Lists for their birthdays/Christmas/Hanukkah/whatever. After college? After high school? Do some people NEVER write Wish Lists?

So please, readers, indulge me. Do you still write wish lists? Who do you give them to now? Husbands? Boyfriends? Parents, still? Do you write them out or email them? Post it on a blog? Tweet them? Keep it to yourself and hope you get what you wanted (“Oh stop, you don’t have to get me anything!!”)?

Come to think of it, this whole Wish List thing is starting to sound an awful lot like a Wedding Registry…hmmm…….