It’s not that I was such a girly-girl, but if you saw the photos of my Christmases past you’d be excused for thinking so.

There I am at two years old, wearing a jolly, holly-berry red dress and black patent leather shoes. My left hand holds a mini dust mop, my right, a tiny carpet sweeper. A matching broom, the last of the set, is on the floor in a box labeled “Little Queen Housekeeper’s Kit.” Just because we’re cleaning the floor, my outfit seems to say, is no reason not to look our best.

The following Christmas there was a complete pink play kitchen next to my grandparents’ heavily tinseled tree. In one photo, I am the perfect hostess in my candy-striped pink dress and shiny patent leather shoes, hosting a tea party for my mother amid my miniature appliances. Jackie Kennedy had nothing on me.

At age four, my dress was green plaid, but it’s hard to see much of it beneath the gingham cook’s apron I wear. This year there are roller skates strapped to my ubiquitous black patent leather shoes, and I wear them as I iron a hanky on my new child-sized ironing board. The skates represent a fashion trend, which had it caught on, would have made household chores a lot more interesting.

Is it any wonder I didn’t become a longshoreman or auto mechanic? The mystery is how I turned out to be such an indifferent housekeeper. In any case, my formative years were spent in the midst of maternal relatives and all the trappings of early 1960s femininity. I wore curlers. I dressed paper dolls. I played with face powder and perfume when the grown-ups weren’t watching. Given a box of felt and sequins, I could sit quietly for hours designing Christmas ornaments.

Then I grew up and gave birth to boys.

Three boys, to be exact – and not one of them interested in dolls or clothes or sitting quietly.

Not that I didn’t try. Way back in their preschool years, Spence and Alex were each given a boy Cabbage Patch doll to encourage their nurturing skills. In the months that followed, I never once saw either boy change his doll’s clothes or tuck it into bed. Instead, the macrocephalic toys spent their time in Tonka trucks crashing into each other. Occasionally, they varied the routine by sky-diving from the upper landing. The whole business was an eye-opener to a woman of my generation who had been led to believe boys were just girls who hadn’t been properly socialized.

My children have never owned a toy that so much as hinted at housework. Our Christmases are filled with things that shoot, fly, blow up, or catch fire – sometimes they’re even intended to. One year the favorite toy was a Nerf Gatling gun with suction cup projectiles; by noon every picture in the house was bristling with Nerf darts. Then there was Will’s motion-sensor dinosaur that screamed when anyone crossed its path. Will spent the week after Christmas setting it up in unexpected places until his tense and twitching parents finally retired it to the attic.

Here’s my prediction for Christmas 2008. Shortly after the presents are opened, the used wrapping paper will be wadded into balls and war will break out. At some point a big Lego-something will be constructed beneath the tree. Someone will put a bow on the dog. The cat will spend the day hiding in the basement. Anything pink is mine. And anything meant for housecleaning or cooking … well, that’s mine too.

Wendy will be spending Christmas at home wondering whatever happened to patent leather shoes. To contact her or to see more of her work visit her Web site at www.wendytweten.com.