Is there anything more adorable, more endearing than a child writing their hopeful letters to Santa Claus? Is there nothing more heartfelt, more cherishable in the world? The answer is yes, as I came to learn, after intercepting a load of letters en route to the North Pole for the big man himself. After reading the first few lines of drivel out of some of the letters, I felt compelled to respond (after all, am I not just as jovial and wise as the real St. Nick?), sitting down with my ink pen and oodles of Christmas spirit, ready to help the children of the world believe their letters had reached Santa. Here's some of the letters and my responses, just so everyone can appreciate the great service I've done for the community:
Deer Santy,
Pweese cum and dwop off da gifts at my howse this yeer. I have ben gud and stuf.
Sinserely,
Billy
Dear Billy,
Nice try, Billy. Going for the cute, adorably misspelled words to make Santa think you're all young and innocent. Look, it's time to take this seriously. Santa cares about proofreading and running spell-check. Santa doesn't like half-assed letters that try and trick him into caring about you. Santa also likes talking in third person. This letter isn't worthy enough to use to clean up Rudolph's shit. And let me tell you, the only thing redder than Rudolph's nose is his anus. The guy never stops going.
Yours fecally,
Santa
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is for my father to not have to work on Christmas day for Mr. Scrooge, his horrible boss. It would be just splendid if we could spend the day eating bread crumbs and talking about what we would eat for Christmas dinner if we could afford it! God bless us, everyone!
Sincerely,
Timmy Cratchett
Dear Timmy,
No offense, Timmy, but your dad sounds pretty lazy to me. Plenty of other Americans are doing their part, but old Mr. Cratchett is too good to put in an honest day's work. Maybe next year you should send a letter to the government instead of me. They're all about giving freeloaders like your dad some charity for his laziness. I feel zero sympathy.
Disrespectfully yours,
Santa
Dear Santa,
I would like a new Barbie doll, an Easy-Bake Oven and a Cabbage Patch Doll. How are the reindeer? Thanks Santa!
Sincerely,
Betty Sumner
Dear Betty,
Betty, I think the only thing you'll need for the rest of your life is an apron, judging by your Christmas list. Let me guess: you're the kind of girl who fantasizes about what last name would sound the neatest when hyphenated with your current last name. Take my advice: Find a man, take him for everything he's got, change your identity and then steal off to the Bahamas with me. Santa needs a sugar momma.
Waiting for you on the other side,
Santa
P.S. The reindeer are emaciated and Donner probably won't make it through the winter. Also Blitzen gave birth to a three-legged calf, and I had to put it down. Merry Christmas.
P.P.S. How does Betty Sumner-Claus sound to you? Eh? C'mon!
Okay, so these weren't the jolliest of responses, but so what? Everyone knows the real Santa Claus died from a combination of a brain aneurism and a gunshot wound to the esophagus. I mean, who thought it was a good idea to make a guy pushing 70 try to run around the world in a single night?! Oh, and let's feed him cookies while we're at it... the guy's lucky he's not diabetic after all those years. To tell you the truth, the Santa name was bought out in a joint venture by Amazon.com and Google. Well, Merry Christmas!
Think Jon is worse than The Grinch and Ebeneezer Scrooge combined? E-mail him a letter so he can make fun of you at spike@wisc.edu.
