Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
I'm happy to report that this year I've been really really good.  That is if we're grading on a curve and comparing the last few years that are still on my official transcript.  I've had:

• No speeding tickets.
• No arrest warrants issued with my name.
• and I have resisted the temptation to declare myself a sovereign nation and move to another country (a hard urge to resist considering my genetic make-up).

I'm also happy to report that I have really stepped up on doing good deeds this year too:

• At great personal peril, I helped a friend overcome the wretched plight of owning a car with a missing hubcap.
• Three times this year I 've braved the wildly overcrowded school parking lot just to pick my kids up, sparing them a dreaded bus ride.
• I attempted to sort socks once or twice this year--a true act of heroism if you ask me.

Here's my official

Christmas Wish List:

First and foremost, would it be at all possible for one of your little elves to get the loose screw outta my car's dash board?  It's driving me crazy.  I'm beginning to avoid driving anywhere that would require me to make a left or right turn--which honestly, put's real a damper on the number of places I can go.

Also, I would really looooove some dark chocolate covered pretzels.

They're the perfect blend of salt and sweet and instantly put me in a mellow mood, but I just can't seem to find them anywhere.  I was hoping you had an in with a chocolatier or perhaps had an elf who could whip me up a batch...or two...or three.  I'll really need them if you won't be able to help me with my loose screw, a little chocolate salty goodness will help calm my irritation on the matter.

Expandable jeans.  

No, not for me!  For my son.  Connor seems to be on a little growth spurt and manages to make "high waters" out of his jeans every two months.  I'd send the kid to school in shorts and just take a leave of absence from denim but it's winter and I'm afraid the school will think I'm abusing the poor kid by sending him out to wait for the bus in freezing winter temps.  I think the solution would be to have your elves invent some sort of expandable pant leg jeans.  Couldn't be too hard could it?  It would save me some serious cash. 

Also, would it be possible to  make that hair feather trend to go away. Or at least pass the message along to women over 30 that it is not a pretty trend to look like a molting chicken. I can understand little girls following this hair craze but it's just too much seeing everyone you meet sporting feathers in their hair like they'd slept the night on cheap down pillow.  Chloe's been wanting to get "feathered" and I can only hold her off for so long--so please just make this trend go away.  I'd rather she got tattooed.  Seriously Santa, you'd make ME and all the fishermen out there really really happy this year if you'd give them back their feather lures. 

I could also really use More space on my DVR.

I'm a total nerd and love to record all kinds of stuff on the history and discovery channels--yes I know, an unmistakable sign I'm getting old.  You'd think with one hundred hours of recording time there'd be no problems recording anything you want but I'm afraid I'm a bit of a digital hoarder.  My recordings are beginning to look a lot like my bookshelves--overstuffed with things I can't bear to part with. How does one find the courage to completely erase 'Lost Cave Temples of the Himalaya" or Michael Buble singing "Ham and Bubbly" on SNL?

An appliance that will last longer than six months.  I'm having horrible luck with appliances.  I've replaced a fridge and dishwasher this year...and my brand spankin' new dishwasher went kaput!  Please find me an appliance that will last longer than the round of therapy I need to treat my angst over this matter.  I'd even take an old harvest gold or avocado green kind like my parents used to have. 

I would also love to have some snow on Christmas.  Honestly I hate the cold but if it's gotta be so stinkin' freezing then we might as well have it snow.  Perhaps you and the weather man can work out a deal.  Yes, please, please, please, let it snow, let it snow, let it snow!




On a travel note, I have two wishes.  I would love to go and watch the
Palio di Siena. It's on my bucket list.

I would also like to see the
sun set at Machu Picchu.

it's another bucket list place.  Speaking of which, so was a Space Shuttle.  I put that on my list last year and I know you worked really hard to make that one work.  But timing just wasn't right.  Instead of watching one of the last shuttle launches, I got to watch my very first grand baby launch into this world.  Not a bad trade.


Oh, and one last request:

If it's not too much trouble, could you send some more elves  (not the ones locating the loose screw in my car's dashboard, nor the ones sewing expandable pants for Connor) but a few of the others--could you send them to the house and have them  
take down my Christmas tree?  It never seems to get done on a timely basis.


Thanks again Santa. 
I'll leave the cookies in the usual spot.

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

This year I've been pretty good.  Unless of course you ask my kids. They'll tell you I've sworn a few times, listened to music a little too loud--even though I warn them not to, and that while they were away at school I snuck in and ate most of the chocolate fun-size bars from their Halloween candy bags.  But in my defense I think the swearing was probably caused by a rogue child, the music was loud in an effort to drown out and counteract theirs, and despite stealing chocolate from my children I think it made me a calmer mother.

So if these things can be overlooked AND if you can take in account the good things I've done this year like:

• Showing remarkable restraint by NOT posting sordid comments on others Facebook pages
• Used way more recyclable grocery bags (impressive eh?)
• Forcing my family to eat more leftovers so we are not so wasteful (plus it saved me time in the kitchen!) AND...
• Not killing my children after they ruined my car

Then here is my 

Christmas Wish List:

First, I would like Connor's feet to grow.  It's a simple request really and it would make my life so much easier.  Right now we have the same size feet and that is a big problem.  He steals my flip flops and takes them off all over the house AND yard and I can't seem to ever find them.  Not only that, he wears my motorcycle boots and it drives me crazy.  

I own two pair.  He starts off wearing one set and somehow they get all filled up with sand.  Once the toe end is chuck full of sand and they seem to "no longer fit" he just switches to wearing my other pair.  I'm tired of shoe sharing...and with my son no less.  If his feet grew a bit my troubles would be over.

Next, I'm really hoping you can pull some North Pole strings and see if you could please tell my local store to bring back Shower Power.  

Honestly, what happened to my favorite cleaner?  My shower has lost its sparkle and I'm going mad.  I've tried other things but nothing works.  Tried KaBoom...it KaFizzled.  Tilex, nothing.  I can't stand a scummy shower.  Please force these cleaning cartels to bring this back to a store near me.  Everyone deserves to enjoy a Christmas free from the tyranny of soap scum.



Also, I would really like My neck back. Last year it was my eyesight, this year it's my neck.  I'm afraid I'm gonna be spending most of my wishes in the years to come on body parts that are aging, which does not bode well at all.  But this year, while taking some self photos during a long road trip I was horrified to see my poor neck.  What happened to it?  And why didn't people warn me about this sort of madness?

Here's the first photo that set off my aging alarm!  Look at my neck!

Never mind that my sister and I may look haggard and like a couple of bugs in our sunglasses...This was taken on a road trip halfway across the country.  So give us a pass of the overall beauty we're sadly lacking in the photo.  But me? And my neck?  What the heck it that about??

Seriously alarming.  So I started taking the rest of my pictures like this...

This is not a good way to live, all neck nervous.  Please Santa, I would like my young neck back.



I would also really like to See the Space Shuttle launch.  Apparently someone got the bright idea to end the shuttle program before I got to see a real live launch.  This is a serious problem since I put this on my bucket list.  And as you can imagine, that's gonna make it awfully hard to check off if they aren't launching them anymore.

Now, just so you know, I've made a formidable attempt to get this done without asking you for any help.  Go ahead, just ask any of your "we-know-when-you're-awake" Elves and they'll tell you I got pretty darn close to checking this off my list.  T minus 10 close to be exact.  But the weather was really bad in Turkey AND Spain so they scuttled the launch in FLORIDA.  All I got out of the deal was a really long bus ride back to the Cape Canaveral parking lot and this lovely patch.  What the heck do I sew that on to??
  
Seriously, lets imagine for a moment that I went all "scoutmaster" and sewed the thing on to my jacket or something.  What exactly would I say to someone who asked me what my space shuttle patch was for? A scuttled launch?  Not the stuff dreams and bucket lists are made of.  So if there's any way you could speak with the people at NASA, would you ask them to try and get these last couple of launches to go off right on schedule just for me? I've got a bucket list that needs a checkmark.

I would also like to pre-order some better weather for spring baseball.  I froze last year.  And when you're forced to keep the stats and your bad at it,  and your fingers are totally frozen, well, it doesn't make for good record keeping.  Just ask the last couple of umpires that needed me to give them a very accurate game update.  A little more spring sunshine would help my attitude and my accuracy.

And one last request...
If you've got some extra time I'd love it if you'd send your elves to come and clean out the barn.  Really, it needs it.  I'll even leave you homemade cookies instead of the store bought kind if you can pull this off.


Thanks Santa!

Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I've been good this year.  Perhaps a teensy weensy bit naughty, but certainly not enough to merit coal in my stocking.  I've worked very hard to turn over a new leaf and have changed my ways.  I hope you've noticed that I've:

• Cut down on swearing in front of the kids
• Limited my shoe buying   (This one was painful!)
  
• Gone hands-free with my cell phone when I drive
• Gotten better at doing the laundry on a timely basis
• Shown marked improvement sharing my chocolate
  

So I'm officially submitting  My Wish List:

I would like more time to read...

A new playlist to help me jog with a better attitude.  I think some new music might help me find my groove.  Probably not but it's worth a try.  Every time I run all I can think about it stopping.  Oh, and my I-pod just broke so  I'm gonna need a new one of those too.


No, not the boots, I would like the LEGS to be able to rock a pair of these...

well, okay, maybe the boots too.

Oh and speaking of body parts, I would like my eye sight back.  Seriously.  I'm really not happy wearing "Grandma Glasses" when I have to read.  It really sucks.

I love to cook but a Personal Chef would be nice...

But if that is way too much to ask for, cause I'd only need him part time, then could you please fill my freezer full of Lean Cuisines for those days when I don't feel like cooking??

 I'd also love it if you could have one of your little elves come and fix my central vac.  Somebody decided to suck a bunch of rocks up with it and it just doesn't work too well anymore. 

By the way, I'd love to know WHO did it too.  No one around here seems to be fessing up.  Even after I declared a swearing moratorium on myself and promised not to get upset should said offender come forward.  So could you check your naughty list and let me know who the culprit is and put coal in their stocking?  Oh wait, they'll probably want to vacuum that up too.  Never mind.

Maybe not an A+ but at least good grades for my teenage son.  We get a huge discount on insurance if his grades each semester are good.  And heaven knows, we could use some cheaper insurance premiums.  Have you checked out how much it costs to insure a teenage MALE driver these days?  It'll scare you.  So please Santa, doctor up his report card and send it on to Farmers Insurance.

And if it's not any trouble, I'd like this island off Belize...strictly for health reasons of course.  My doctor says I need more vitamin D.  Some rich banker doesn't need his island anymore so he put it up for sale, just in time for Christmas.

It's bargin priced. At least I thought so.

Thanks Santa.  You know where you can find the cookies.