I tell people I want world peace, but I’ve yet to have someone put a bow on it and give it to me. I’ll keep waiting. I guess I should work harder for peace on a lower level. But, I like “swinging for the fence.”

Otherwise, let’s get back into the “realistic arena.” Telling someone what you want for Christmas can be effective. It used to be that kids would put a bookmark in the Sears and Roebuck catalog and circle the doll or BB gun that they wanted. There were no guarantees, but the message was sent.

Some adults had a great scheme of getting what they wanted for Christmas. If a guy wanted a snowmobile, he simply bought one. And then he gave it to his wife for Christmas. Wives could use the same strategy with the giving of a vacation including tickets to Josh Groban or Michael Bublé to the man of the house.

I have a different game plan. And it works for relatively inexpensive gifts. This is how it goes. When you’re in a store with your spouse, or your child, or your friend, or your relative — you just pick something up and hand it to that person. And then you say, “Give that to me for Christmas, will ya?”

That’s what I did the other night. We were in a store and I saw a little, ornamental, glass box about 4 inches by 6 inches. It stands maybe 4 inches high. It looked like something I needed.

When I handed it to my wife with the request that she give it to me for Christmas, she politely asked a question. She asked, “What do you want that for?”

(That was much more polite than saying what might have been in her mind, which perhaps was, “You do not need anotherrrr thing to sit around collecting dust” — which technically is true.)

I gave her a polite answer to her polite question, “I need something to put some of my gee gaws into so I can see them.” Her polite follow-up question was, “What’s a gee gaw?”

Wanting to answer correctly, I quickly got an answer by asking my phone. Some words that are associated with gee gaw are: souvenir, ornament, novelty, or knickknack. As it turned out, what I really may have meant is tied up in the word memento or keepsake or reminder or relic, but gee gaw works.

Last May, I picked up four little, beautiful (to me) rocks from the beach at Hampton Beach, New Hampshire. Those rocks have been sitting on top of a low bookcase in our bedroom since I brought them home. Alongside the small stones is now a pretty (to me) mottled, mostly white, marble which I scraped out of the lawn when raking leaves not long ago.

Those items, along with a selection of other small “collectibles” I’ve gathered over time, is what I have in mind for my anticipated Christmas box present. From other beaches, I have some tiny shells and “mermaid’s tears” that would go nicely in the box.

(You might be wondering about “mermaid’s tears.” Think of small pieces of glass, sometimes colored, which have been smoothed and washed up by the sea.)

I’m envisioning being able to put my “treasures” on display. And then those things can be dumped out, handled, and enjoyed occasionally.

A brother of mine has accumulated a lot of stuff that he kind of knows he’ll have to eventually part with. What he says now though is, “I haven’t had time yet to enjoy those things as much as I would like.”

So, I hope that perhaps you now have an idea about how to get something you want for Christmas, even if it’s just a small’ish thing. Just speak up and take action. My wife followed my lead the other night in the store.

She showed up at the shopping cart I was pushing and put something in the cart and said, “Give this to me for Christmas, will ya?” (Now if I could just remember what it was and where it got put!)

Of course the irony of all of this is, when we checked out at the cashier — everything went on my card. But the fact remains, I’m getting what I want for Christmas! — Merrill