If Grown-Ups Could Write Letters to Santa, Here’s What I’d Ask For
Updated: Sep. 25, 2024
Why shouldn’t adults get the chance to write to Santa Claus? We have wishes; we have dreams. Some of these aspirations are more complex than a new bike, but some are more achievable than a horse. Here’s my hopeful letter to Santa for Christmas 2022.
Dear Santa: Could you ask restaurants to be quieter? There is so much background music, I can no longer hear what’s being said. The other day I went to lunch with an old friend who’s just become president of Tanzania. Or a resident of Tasmania. I’m not sure.
Dear Santa: Could you reduce the products sold in packaging that is impossible to break into? For example, when I buy a pair of scissors, I need another pair of scissors to free the first pair from its plastic fortress.
Dear Santa: Can you use your influence to make paper towels mandatory in public washrooms? Everyone knows that hot-air hand dryers—also known as electric pants-wetting machines—don’t work. Their instructions should say, “Step 1: Hit button; Step 2: Rotate hands in airstream; Step 3: Give up and wipe your hands on your clothes.”
Dear Santa: Can you ban the sale of pre-ripped jeans? If people want their jeans to look like they’ve been working on their hands and knees in a field, I believe they should be forced to find a field in which they can work down on their hands and knees.
Dear Santa: Can we limit the number of TV streaming services? All we want is the chance to see the show that all our friends are watching. Not long ago, this involved buying a TV and twiddling the aerial until a picture formed. Sometimes you needed to get a child to hold the aerial to clear the horizontal lines. My point is there were no ongoing costs. These days, watching TV involves subscribing to an ever-increasing number of streaming sites, with the only rule being that the show you want to see will be on the one service you lack.
Dear Santa: I realize that every year brings a new food trend, but in 2023, could we come up with something better than kale—something that tastes good? We did it a few years ago, when the whole world discovered halloumi cheese. Surely we could do it again.
Dear Santa: Could we bring back colourful cars? When did all vehicles become white? (Or silver—which could be renamed “dusk,” since these cars are impossible to see except in full sunlight.) Whatever happened to the canary yellow car? Or the snazzy MG sports car in British racing green? I know one will be hard to fit into my stocking, but maybe you can try.
Dear Santa: I’d like the human race to be given back its sense of humour, which appears to have gone missing at about the time Twitter was invented. And while you’re at it, Santa, could you encourage people to be more forgiving whenever they go online?
Dear Santa: Could we have less choice when we go shopping? I mean, do we really need dog foods concocted according to the age, breed and personality of the animal? And at what point did the purchase of milk become a way of expressing one’s deeper life journey? As in: “I prefer homogenized yet organic milk, in a light-to-medium formulation, from cows that willingly agreed to the process of milking.”
People on dating apps have chosen a new partner in less time than it takes me to buy a bar of soap. Since you must fit everything onto a single sled, Santa, I nominate you as the perfect person to reform the system.
Next, check out these funny holiday stories shared by our readers.
