A Letter To Santa

Dear Santa,

It is that time of year to sit right down and write you a letter. I guess this is suppose to be my wish list but maybe I want more than you can handle. You are only Santa Claus and we’ve made you up just like many of our idols and gods. Maybe I should carbon copy the Easter Bunny just to make sure?

So another Christmas rolls around and I should think of what I want to find under the tree on the twenty-fifth. I think I have enough guitars now so you can scratch off the list. I’ve got enough hoodies and jeans and socks and tee-shirts and sweat pants and shorts to last for awhile. I got plenty of appliances in the kitchen and enough televisions to go around since I’m not watching much. I’ve got plenty of music, even though I don’t have the stereo hooked-up, but the boom boxes in every room are working fine to keep me entertained and informed with NPR. I’ve got more furniture than I can sit in and plenty of rugs that haven’t even covered the dirty floors. I might need some stuff for the yard but it is too cold to plant unless you want to come back in April?

Let me look back through the years of what you used to bring me. A cross pen was always handy until I lost it, a dress shirt with lots of pins in it and a swell tie I would only wear on Sunday, an electric razor to keep me trimmed, a Timex watch to keep me on time, a box of life savors to rot my teeth, and a comb were the common gifts. Thanks Santa you were really swell to me.

There was always one BIG gift to make Christmas special. You brought me a carnival stuffed dog when I asked for a real one, a cardboard tank that didn’t last long when left outside in the rain, the electric football game with the felt football that took longer to set up than was worth playing, and that doll when my hair was too long. Yes, I got it.

Now that I’m resigned to take care of myself and not wait for you Santa, I must decide what will be wrapped up for me to open. Haven’t seen any toys that attract my fancy or have anyone else to buy perfume or delicates for, so I must think long and hard about what I want.

I want a cure to disease, but I don’t think even with all the money in the world, we can solve all these problems. People are just fragile and in the end we will all die.

I want an end to war, but again you are just Santa and even our other made-up icons like Jesus and Muhammad haven’t been able to solve war but are more likely to cause the problem.

I want for people of the world to get along with each other, the way you and the elves and the reindeer do up at the North Pole, but we don’t seem to have the mental capabilities to take time to understand one another creating fear of differences.

I want everyone to find love, but that little Cupid guy seems to be missing his arrows and by February you are taking a nap.

I want people to treat our other planet’s residence with respect and care, but we take them as subservient creatures so we torture them and control them and train them to do tricks and then eat them.

Santa, just between you and me, I guess I’ll be realistic and wish for things that might come to pass.

I want you to give me the strength to get through the next few weeks of Christmas carols, flashing gaudy lights and blow-up dolls, photos of smiling children running around in their pj’s tearing wrapping paper and yelling a gifts they will forget in two weeks, selfies of families gathered around long tables of grub getting sloshed on eggnog, and the inevitable post season depression before the inauguration.

Santa I like you. I think you are one of the better legendary figures of our Western culture but you are mainly for children to worship until they find out you are a lie.

I’ll look up in the night sky and even hear the sleigh bells with a smile of faux wonder but even Tinkerbelle can’t bring me what I want.

I’ll leave you milk and cookies.