How Dora ruined Christmas

My family celebrated its Christmas overrun by kids for the first time in seven years.

Our hip-hop Christmas tunes and drunken slurs were turned down and drowned out by the tiresome squeals of three toddlers and the not precious cries of a 4-month-old baby.

One of the toddlers was a 2-year-old boy. We’ll call him Ivan.

This was my family’s first Christmas with Ivan and we had a hard time adjusting to a certain quirk of his.

Ivan loves “Dora the Explorer.” It is his absolute favorite TV show.Dora is his girl, and that’s all he wanted for Christmas.

I’ve already gone through the “Dora the Explorer” movement with my little sister and that little Spanglish-spouting adventurer is at the top of my hit list.The theme song is forever burned into my brain and red boots make me quiver in fury to this day.

I couldn’t figure out what Dora could offer anyone, but especially a boy.

Instinctively, I thought “Dora the Explorer” is for girls.

My family felt the same way. This sparked a ridiculous, yet controversial, debate in my family.

Should they buy a 2-year-old boy “girl toys?”

It’s stereotyping.

We use toys to separate boys and girls from childhood. The toys teach us about our inevitable roles in life once we’ve grown to adulthood.

Boys have boy toys like Nerf guns and Hot Wheels and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures to teach them how to kill and drive fast getaway cars.

Girls have Barbie dolls and Easy Bake Ovens to teach them disappointment and how to cook brownies in a battery-operated glorified microwave.

We’re told these lessons are vital to development.

You can’t just buy a boy a “Dora the Explorer” plush purple backpack. That could destroy the very foundation on which reality sits.

Once you cross that line there is no going back. His whole future is ruined.

He’ll have difficulty relating to other boys.

Middle school will be spent writing poetry instead of playing sports.

He’ll wear flower crowns instead of baseball hats.

He’ll watch DIY bracelet weaving videos on Pinterest instead of porn. Then come high school prom he’ll show up in a dress he bedazzled himself.

That’s the crazy extreme fear.

The reality is that he’ll be a 2-year-old boy with a purple backpack that he pretends speaks to him

.He’ll run around the house talking to an invisible monkey and yelling at an invisible fox dressed like Zorro.

And by next Christmas, he probably won’t even remember that he had the backpack because 2-year-olds go through toys like an alcoholic with a 12-pack. They don’t last long.

We are beyond the day and age where we put genders on toys. It doesn’t matter what a kid plays with.

You can’t trample on their likes and loves because you don’t think it’s right for a boy or girl.

Let kids be kids.