Despite clearly biting her lip and shivering with pleasure as she stroked a Marseille blue Le Creuset Dutch oven at Sur la Table, local mother Diana McDougal confirmed today that all she wants for Christmas is happy children.
“No one needs to spend any money on me – seeing my children happy is always gift enough,” sighed McDougal later in her Bothell home as she gently traced her finger over the glossy advertising insert for Le Creuset’s high-end, Ina Garten-approved enameled cast iron. “Are you hungry sweetheart? I think I have an old cast iron saucepan I hate cleaning that I could make you some chowder with.”
McDougal’s adult children say that in order to find any gifts for their mother, staying carefully attuned to whatever quietly arouses her is a mandatory, even if disturbing, yuletide ritual.
“Last year she kept telling us about all her friends with air fryers as if they had all gone on an exciting, naughty spring break in Cancun and then telling us she would never want one from me since I need to ‘start my career.’ I’m 36,” said her son, Boeing engineer Brian McDougal. “So that’s how we knew what she wanted last year. This year, after we awkwardly walked in on her whispering sweet nothings to an ad for it, it’s obviously the Le Creuset kitchenware.”
At press time, Ms. McDougal’s children and husband confirmed that her sudden habit of kissing and caressing every piece of marble in the house means that by her birthday next year she wants new countertops.
