Checking your list of stocking stuffers? How about a chicken coop?

The Christmas decorations and candy canes have been out in CVS for a while – at least since they moved the Halloween decorations and candy corn to the half-priced section.

Although I haven’t yet “thrown a nickel in the drum”, the Salvation Army has its bell ringers out and about.

And yesterday, I got the latest Vermont Country Store catalog. I have long since instructed my sisters to kidnap me and initiate a full wardrobe makeover if ever I order any article of clothing  - other than knee socks - from VCS, with the added stipulation that if the article of clothing is a mu-mu they should forget the makeover and just go ahead and shoot me. Yet there I was, avidly thumbing through the new catalog with Santa on the cover  - even reading the fine print on the mu-mu pages – trying to figure out what minimal item I have to order so that I can stay in the good, catalog-mailing graces of what has to be one of the most spectacularly interesting catalogs ever.

So it’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, even without any sign as yet of the heinous put-a-big-red-bow-on-a-Lexus ads celebrating the perfect lifestyles of grandees. (Harrumph.)

Yes, Christmas is in the air, and Wayfair, a local online retailer specializing in home goods  - alas, no mu-mus – has just announced its expected best sellers for the holiday season.

Forget everything you think you know about home for the holiday, errrrr, holiday for the home.

Wayfair is predicting that chicken coops will be flying of its shelves.

…with the locavore trend in full cry, Wayfair.com is laying in a full line of chicken coops, with prices ranging from just over $100 to more than $1,500.

As the company’s press release notes: “The trend of raising chickens in the backyard has been sweeping the country for a couple of years now and seems to be propelled by Americans’ interest in more self-reliance as well as an interest in locally-raised food. Wayfair.com carries more than 30 different types of chicken coops.” (Source: Boston.com)

Well I’ll be a foghorn leghorn.

I’m as loca- as the next vore, so I like the idea of eating what’s near at hand.

Thus I regularly go to the Wednesday farmer’s market at Boston’s City Hall. (Note to self: it’s moving to Congress Street.) I irregularly go to the Friday farmers market in Harvard Square. And I nearly wept for joy when I bit into a tomato that my sister Kath grew on The Cape. (Note to self: ask Kath if she’s planning on expanding from flora-culture to fauna-culture.  I can totally imagine sitting on the porch, wine in hand, watching my brother-in-law chase after a chicken running around with its head cut off.)

For my part, it is a tad difficult to be a genuine, self-sufficient back yard garden variety locavore when when one lives in the concrete jungle (more or less).

Oh, how I envy the residents of The Fens with their marvelous Victory Gardens. Perhaps the city could set aside some section of the Esplanade for urban farming – some section out of trampling range by the 500K folks who show up each 4th of July for The 1812 Overture and John Philip Sousa. Maybe the city couldd return part of Boston Common to its original purpose of cow grazing. (I could even churn my own butter!)

Still, practicing locavore of not, I was surprised to read that chicken coops would be under so many trees this year. It I were the suspicious sort, I might even suspect that a blue-state headquartered company announcing they’re selling a lot of chicken coops might be able to provoke a bit more interest in its press release than they would if, say, the big sellers included Rabbit wine openers and cashmere throws. Just sayin’. Or would be saying if I were the suspicious sort and/or had never written a press release.

Anyway, I way-fared my way over to Wayfair.com to see what else was part of their forecast for this year’s “Most Popular Holiday Gifts for Kids and Family.”

Thanks to the U.S. women’s gymnastics team, including local (locavore?) Aly Raisman, trampolines have bounced to the top of Santa’s list. So much for ‘kids don’t try this at home.’ Air hockey tables are also up there, and I have to admit that, if I had a game room, you can forget pool or foosball. I’m an air hockey gal all the way. Kayaks are the third ‘fun for the whole family’ item on the list.

All three of these gifts are great in that they’re timeless, they’re not the sorts of thing that get used once and pushed under the bed, and they’re neither gimmicky nor tied into some grotesque hook the kids early marketing campaign.

Still, I have to admit that kayaks scare the crap out of me. I don’t like putting my head underwater to begin with, let alone when I’m upside down and snuggly caught in my seat with a plastic kayak on top of me. I am quite certain that, once capsized, I would forget everything I’d been told about rolling with the kayak punches and would panic and drown.

Less dangerously, children's recliners and gaming chairs are also on Wayfair’s list of top sellers. Kids love furniture that’s sized right and, to this day, I wouldn’t say no if someone gave e one of those brightly painted little Heidi chairs with the straw seats. But the idea of a kid’s needing a reclining chair… I know that life is very stressful for kids these days, and many are way over scheduled. Still, the thought of an eight year old kicking back on his pint-sized Barcalounger (with cup holder) makes me cringe. Shouldn’t kids be sitting on the floor playing blocks while they’re watching TV, rather than chillaxin’ in a reclined, semi-fugue state with a half-liter of Dew by their side. (No comment on gaming chairs, as, beyond the obvious, I really don’t know what they are and at the mo’ my Internet connection is down.)

And then there are the chicken coops.

I’m guessing that most kids would rather see a trampoline, air hockey game, kayak, or recliner stuffing their stocking. Especially given what a chicken coop might bode for kids, chore-wise: chicken feeding, coop cleaning, egg collecting, smeared-dung-on-egg cleaning, chicken plucking. Not to mention the specter of dad and mom, wringing a neck or two.

I take back everything I said about recliner chairs for kids. If the family’s going to raise its own chickens, the least they can do for them is get them a nice, comfy chair to regroup in.