Dear Santa,

I need to be honest with you big guy, I know your secret. You aren’t real. But because I no longer get candles on my birthday cake, I have never seen a shooting star, I forget and tell people what I wished for on 11:11 and I am still not so sure about that Jesus man, you are really the only one I can send my wishes to. So here goes, and let’s try to not skimp this year… I don’t need another slinky:

1. First off, our Christmas tree is about twice the age of me, so I would first like to request a less pathetic tree to hang our ornaments on.
2. I know I have asked before but I didn’t want you to forget about creating world peace and curing famine. It is easily forgotten when kids in America are crossing their fingers for an iPhone, kids across the world are hoping they wake up to something to eat and clean water.
3. Back to the selfish traditions of the American Christmas: I wish I could snap my fingers and someone would arrive to give me a two-hour full body massage whenever I pleased.
4. My sister lives far too far away for my liking, so shorten the distance from Midland to Chicago by about 5 hours thank you very much.
5. The haircut I got from my ear surgeons, it’s got to go… reverse please?
6. On that note, it would be stellar if I could hear crystal clear without those surgeries.
7. You know that heartbreak I got earlier today? At first I was thinking to make sure he gets nothing but coal, but what I realized is that I want him to be happy. So what I will ask for instead is to eliminate jealousy and the fear letting myself feel deeply for someone. I’ll keep the heartache for now, I think it will make me stronger as long as I am open, take risks & not take things so seriously. Just don’t let me die alone. (I can’t be a cat woman, I hate them.)
8. If I am making wishes, might as well make ‘em big! How about an all-expenses-paid-roundtrip month long vacation across Europe?
9. You might have to pull a few strings but mostly I just want my dad back. I would give back every Christmas gift I have ever gotten and forget about my previous requests for just this one.
10. Oh and obviously it costs about $40,000 to pay for my schooling. I think you can get a payment plan for that but hey, you are Santa, threaten them with the naughty list and they might cut you a break.

My list would get far too long if I started making all the wishes for the happiness of the people I love because I think the number is close to 6 billion and the world keeps growing. In all honesty, they know what makes them happy more than I do. So my last wish is that they make a list of their own and for each one that you can’t fit under their tree, give them the strength, passion and confidence to capture it themselves.