Santa's Helpers

We sat on the floor of the Post Office, reading through the big, round scrawls--the i's dotted with hearts and the Santa Clauses colored into the corners (with belly-buttons of course, and one wearing Nike's). Dear Santa. They all began with that: Dear Santa.

Dear Santa,

I promise I will put cookie and milk under the Christmas tree. I don't have a chimney, but I leave my window open....

There were also the kind that featured backwards "e's" and misspelled words--you could almost see their mouths moving as they held the crayons in their fists. They probably had big, juice-stain clown lips and sticky glue-patch fingers, and their mothers finished the letters for them so that the addresses, at least, would be legible.

Then there were the Future Type-A personalities, who'd cut out pictures from the catalogues. Model numbers. Detailed notes. Please also send two packages of AA batteries so that I can play with this toy right away. Thorough. These were the future Mathletes. The ones who asked for school supplies.

There were also the sort who took a few frantic seconds out from jumping on beds and terrorizing family pets to scribble, DEAR SANTA--I WANT A WWE RAW SMACKDOWN T-SHIRT. These kids scared us.

Harvard picked out the ones who wanted warm scarfs and mittens, deciding on the spot that they'd be getting "warm" but they'd also be getting something that whirred or buzzed or jumped or dug. Because no kid should just get long-underwear from Santa.

I picked out the little girl with no chimney because, come on. How could I resist? She's getting a lot of Barbies, and hopefully--unlike me--she won't be tying them to her record player. And, yes, I went to a women's college and know that Barbie is Satan personified and any woman in real life who had those measurements wouldn't be able to actually bear children, but would, instead, be forced to totter down fashion runways for the rest of her life clothed in free couture, making $10,000 dollars an hour, while getting tax-write off pedicures and fending off all the investment bankers who wanted to date her. And--knowing all of that--I bought myself a Barbie too.

And it occurred to me today, having not had a boyfriend who would do actual Christmas stuff at Christmas time since...wait for it....

...wait for it....

...

...

HIGH SCHOOL (deleted "High fucking school" because this is, after all, a Christmas post)

...that I am quickly finding out that the spirit of giving is fantastic. But the spirit of giving followed by a quick walk home with our Santa Letters...to strip down into our chilly underwear, and get into his snuggly bed...and the icy feet...and his lame-but-adorable flamingo boxer shorts...and him warming my hands in between his knees under the covers...and full-lip kisses...and making the Wookie noise to freak his roommate out...til we laugh and laugh and can't nap we're laughing so hard...

...that stuff is good enough to knock a girl's tree right over.

I love caring about people. I love being cared about back.