CHRISTMAS VILLAGE, North Pole – I’ll admit, there have been times in my life when I’ve been downright greedy with my Christmas gift wish list. Shit, when I was nine, I had the audacity to ask Santa for a handful of Micronauts, a dozen different Star Wars action figures and a Shogun Warrior. (Instead, what Santa brought me was a scratchy wool sweater, a cartoon book about dinosaurs and a Shogun warrior knockoff made in South Korea, leading to my lifelong and bitter resentment of jolly old St. Cheapskate.)

This year, though, I’m really not asking for much. I’m just asking Santa to allow me to exist for another week or so, so I can be a part of leaving 2020 in the rearview mirror.

Seriously, fuck this whole year, with its COVID-19 pandemic, economy-killing lockdowns, John Prine dying, a Presidential election that just won’t fucking end, Zoom meetings during which there’s a real risk of accidentally masturbating in front of my peers, my acid dealer moving out of town and every other shitty, tragic, soul-crushing thing that happened this year.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s lots of other stuff I’d love to receive this year (like a new acid dealer, for starters), but experience has shown me that asking for lots of gifts just introduces lots of opportunities to be disappointed. I figure if all I ask for is 2020 to end, that shit is going to happen, one way or another.

Come to think of it, we don’t even need to reach January 1, 2021 for 2020 to end. It could end on December 28 with a planet-killing asteroid smashing into the Earth and rapidly extinguishing all human life, for example. I mean, sure, technically time would move on without us, but it’s kind of like that whole ‘tree falls in the forest with nobody around to hear it’ thing; if there’s nobody around to feel hungover after getting shitfaced on New Year’s Eve, will January 1, 2021 truly exist?

As you can see from the dateline on this post, I’m writing this from Christmas Village at the North Pole, Santa’s official residence, according to both legend and Alaska voter registration records. Unfortunately, having arrived on December 23, I didn’t get a lot of face time with Santa, who was busy making a final pass over his Naughty/Nice checklist, conducting pre-flight instrument testing on his reindeer fleet and generally stressing the fuck out about deadlines, weather conditions, customs protocols and pandemic related travel restrictions.

So, while Santa seemed generally receptive to my gift request, even nodding his head and saying “I know, right? Fuck 2020 right in its miserable little ear” when I first mentioned how nice it would be for this year to finally end, he never gave me any clear assurance my wish will be granted.

Part of me wanted to get in Santa’s ruddy-cheeked face and upgrade my humble Christmas wish to an outraged Christmas demand, or even just to scream at him about the Korean Shogun Warrior knockoff (seriously fat man, WTF was that about?). But in the end, I figure Santa is a little like a federal judge: Even when he fully deserves to be screamed at, it’s probably best to refrain from aggressively shrieking at him and stabbing his clerk – or in this case, one of his elves – in the neck.

I guess, much like when I was a young boy and I had to wait to see what was inside the packages under the Christmas tree, I’m just going to have to be patient and see what the next week brings. Will we make a “peaceful transition” into 2021, or will Father Time find himself the defendant in a lawsuit brought by Sidney Powell, seeking a continuance of 2020, or perhaps declaratory judgment holding that Santa is really Hugo Chavez in disguise, our calendars are all wrong and we’re really just starting 2020?

In the meantime, I’m going to stick around here in Christmas Village, at least until Santa gets back, to ride out 2020 in the second happiest place on Earth. After all, with Santa out of town, it’s just me, a couple dozen elves and Mrs. Claus – and they’ve all tested negative for COVID, unlike half the fucking residents of my home state.

Santa plush toy photo by Daniel Reche from Pexels