POLL: Americans' Christmas Wish List: Peace, Love and a Carpet Shampooer
A new poll ranks what Americans want most this holiday season.
Dec. 17, 2007— -- From a Ferrari to a flying saucer to a full-time job, it's wish list time in America.
And what a list it is. This ABC News poll asked it as plainly as can be: "If you could have your choice, what one present would you most like to have for Christmas?" The answers suggest that Santa's going to be one busy dude.
How about…
"$300,000 wrapped in ribbon" for an older man in the Miami area. (Apparently he's been very, very good.)
"A 12-inch compound miter saw" for that handy husband in Iowa. (Let's hope he'll be very, very careful.)
"A vacation home in Tahiti." (Some aim high.)
"A box of cashew nuts." (Some aim low.)
"A Springfield M1A1 rifle." (Some just aim.)
For the gals, not just earrings, but, requests a fashion-conscious woman in Indianapolis, "dangly diamond earrings." And don't pass off any paste on an even more discriminating 40-something in Ohio: "Diamond earrings -- one half to three-quarter carats." If you please.
For the guys, "A beautiful 6-foot brunette." (Dream on, buddy.) "A season ticket for the St. Louis Cardinal games." ($1,134 in the bleachers, and there is a waiting list.) "A voltage detector." (Bingo! $9.95 at Home Depot.)
The list is as varied as America itself -- a roundup of wants and dreams that ranges from the prosaic to the fanciful, the material to the spiritual, the humorous to the human, and the oh-so-practical to the oh-so-weird.
Some of us, we learn, are deeply conflicted about our Christmas wishes. "No clue. A new computer. I have no clue. A new computer," said a woman in her 20s near Harrisburg, Pa. A little something for that whiplash might be nice, too.
Some are oddly equivocal. "Nothing, or maybe peace on Earth," said a retired woman in Philadelphia. Others are more deliberative, if a tad humdrum. "I think clothes, some pantsuits perhaps. I'd like to have some church clothes," said a woman outside Atlanta.
Others -- you know the type -- have trouble restraining themselves. Asked his one preferred gift, a Texan recited: "Money, a loan, a new car, a winning lottery ticket, a Bentley." (MSRP on that is $329,990 for the Azure ragtop –
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