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An Open Letter to Santa from Somebody's Mother

Posted by Somebody's Mother on 5:46 p.m.
Dear Santa,
Well, another year has rolled around and I’ve got to admit it, Mr. Claus, this has been a rough one. Watching the world – my personal world and the great, big wide world – go to hell in a hand basket is rough. The rich may not be getting richer this year but the middle and poor classes are certainly going down the tubes faster than a toilet flushes and the Third World? They’re doing so miserably that they can’t even enjoy our slow demise as much as they should.
I teach teenagers and their latest kick is positive visualization. Yes, I have kids telling me that if they believe with all their heart that they’re going to get no longer than a 98%, that’s what they’ll get. The down side is that if they entertain the slightest amount of doubt, then that 98% goes down to a 96% or lower.


You have to love teenagers for their faith in magic. I know Santa that you are crazy about it but alas, I love those cynical types who have mean and nasty answers for the positive visualizers and I suppose that makes me a bad person too. As one of my colleagues pointed out, where does that leave poor people? Do they just lack faith? I have to say that disease, starvation and misery is punishment to the overkill-degree for someone who just can’t visualize a life without family dying of AIDS and lack of food and clean water.

Santa, it is beyond me to imagine a world where greed takes a backseat to compassion and where all the goodies get spread equitably. Maybe John Lennon had a better imagination than I have because I cannot imagine a world where people live for today and live in peace. Years of bad news have beaten that vision out of my head along with sugar plums.

By the way, I’ve never had a sugar plum in my life. The closest thing that I can imagine is a candy apple and I never was keen on those - too sticky for me. I suppose the elves like them but nowadays, kids have visions of iPhones dancing in their heads as I’m sure that you know very well. You should be so lucky as to get away with leaving kids sugar plums. They’d probably chuck them at you.

Mind you, if you were so kind as to drop off a grocery bag of sugar plums somewhere in Zimbabwe, you might see more gratitude. Given the cholera epidemic, you might want to send in an army of elves to do something about the well water and while you’re at it, there’s a few people that need some slapping up side the head rather than coal to let them know how truly naughty they are but I imagine that’s out of your power. You leave that to God, Fate or Karma.

So where am I going with all of this? Well, Santa, how about one year with very little drama? That’s what I would dearly love to have under my tree: a year where my family can figure out how to get through the various messes without intrigue and soliloquies. As for the rest of the world, what about some boring peace and prosperity? Maybe this big Recession/ Depression is a wake-up call for some but please remember that some of us are plenty awake already and don’t need the drama that those rich schmucks do. Excuse the Yiddish, Santa, but these self-centered guys really are schmucks and they have about as much spirit of Christmas as a Jew in a mosque.

Cut the poor some slack Santa by cutting the drama and we’ll all have a very good year.

Your friend,
Somebody’s Mother


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