Dear Santa,
Every year, people starting talking about simplifying. A few handmade gifts each, lots of hot chocolate and cookies and carols and candlelight church services and real greenery and home-baked goodies delivered to neighbors and food and toys for sharing with less fortunate people and most of all...oh, yeah!...a pervading sense of peace and tranquility and plenty.
But when it comes right down to it, what I really want is a Christmas like I had as a child. Big piles of gifts, shiny and curly and straight from the pages of the Sears Wish Book, or behind the big plate-glass window at Otasco. Baby dolls, a tin kitchen, a working cash register, a record player with a yellow plastic record that plays "Jimmy Crack Corn." A Malibu Barbie doll that I can love without having to worry I might want to grow up to be a hooker.
I want to jump on the simplicity bandwagon, but I also want to jump on the foam-rubber sofa cushion where I oh-so-hopefully left my stocking each Christmas eve. I want to say my prayers in front of the fake-brick paper rollout that served as our fireplace. I want to wear a Santa hat without worrying about whether I look foolish or might muss my hair. I want to ride my tricycle in the house, and I want it to be okay when I am just as excited about receiving a gift as I am about giving one.
I want my brother Rowdy to read us to sleep in our bunk beds, and I want Ben to wake up at 4 a.m. to try out everyone's toys and then wake us to tell us how cool they are. I want Bubby and Rally to wish for -- and get! -- BB guns and wood-burning sets. I want to be able to laugh over stories about how, when we lived in a two-bedroom house, my parents tied our door to the bathroom door to keep Ben from getting up at 4 a.m., and how Rowdy had to pee out the window because he couldn't get to the bathroom. And the time my dad stayed up all night to assemble bicycles and tricycles for all five of us and made it to bed about an hour before we got up to try them out.
Really, though? I want to not feel guilty for trying to give my children the kind of Christmases I had. I want people not to judge me because Geddy gets a bonus and we spend it all, plus some. When people find out Larry, Curly Sue and Moe still believe in you, I want them to say good job, for keeping them children as long as possible.
I can't bring my brother back and wouldn't even if I could, nor my mother-in-law, and they both helped make my Christmases memorable. You stopped visiting me a long time ago and I'm more likely to get Paxil than peanuts in my Christmas stocking. But, Santa, if you could let people know it's okay for us to enjoy Christmas this year, I'd really appreciate it.
Love,
Me
