All the presents are unwrapped, and your ecstatic child brings over a box. On the side you see the words that parents everywhere dread.

Yes, I am talking about Some Assembly Required.

Friends, the continuation of Christmas or Hanukkah fun requires a Swiss Army Knife, fully stocked toolbox, batteries, and hopefully a patient family member with an engineering degree.

Before the assembly can begin, you need to get the items out of the box. This is no longer an easy process. If you’ve purchased toys lately you’re with me. My daughter got a My Little Pony for her birthday, and it took me 15 minutes to get the plastic horse un-twistie-tied, un-taped, and out of the plastic and cardboard. Not to mention taking the tape and thread out of Sunny Daze’s mane. All this extra packaging for a $6 toy. So if you think you got off easy because you stuck with Barbies and Power Rangers, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you’re wrong.

Back to the construction project. The pieces are finally out of the box. You wonder to yourself how the hell they got 245 pieces in that little box. Then, you quietly pray that all the parts are actually there because there is nothing worse than having to put them BACK in the box to return the item.

Next, you take out the instructions. Sometimes all you get are diagrams with badly drawn pictures showing you how to construct said item. In other cases there may be written steps in a variety of languages. In any case, you will be thoroughly confused. It’s time to call in reinforcements.

I remember several years ago my daughter got a play kitchen for Christmas. It took me, my ex-husband, and his parents 2 hours to put the bloody thing together. It required every tool we owned, including a protractor and duct tape.

But when you see your kid enjoying their new item, you forget the stress of putting the toy together. You do make a mental note, however, that books would be a great idea for next year.

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