Dear Santa,

How’s everything going, my jolly friend? Did you and Mrs. Claus  go anywhere for vacation this year? Somewhere tropical, I hope! I know that Christmas isn’t about the trimmings and the trappings. It’s about the love, family, and cookies, blah blah blah, but I also know that the gift of giving is the best gift of all. So I’m going to give you an even better gift. The gift of giving you the opportunity to give some gifts to me! Don’t worry, I’ve given my family my Christmas list with all of the easy things like sweaters and gift cards. I’m asking you to use all of the magic you can muster to help me with the impossible. I know that you’re really busy, but I really think that these things would make this Christmas the best one yet!

As far as my behavior goes, I think I’ve been pretty nice this year. I’ve tried to be a good friend and practice open communication as well as treat myself well both mentally and physically. I do hope that you can forgive the minor misdemeanors like scaring Dan on his way out of the bathroom and antagonizing Josh on our podcast. I swear, it was all in good fun…for me, at least. Now that we have the formalities out of the way, onto my list!

First of all, I would really like for you to make it so that no one judges me for listening to Christmas music early. Every year, I start listening to Christmas music “too early” by everyone else’s standards, and I am SICK of the judgement. Maybe make it a qualification for getting on the “nice” list? Might be a good idea. Just because the holidays start before November for me doesn’t mean that I deserve hatred! Don’t get me wrong, I wish that radio stations that play Christmas music would play a larger variety, but regardless, I would love to hear Christmas music on the radio earlier in the year. Christmas music just makes me feel happy and cozy, and sometimes I want to feel that way in October. Sue me!

Something else that I think we could discuss for that “naughty/nice” list: let’s make it necessary for holiday parties to start around 5 and end around…let’s say…8:30. I don’t love being out too late at night. In fact, after about 9:30 I basically turn into a pumpkin. Once I stop being able to keep my eyes open, it’s all over. Suddenly the only place I want to be is my bed. At the same time, I don’t want to miss out on any of the holiday festivities. My FOMO is way too real for me to miss out on the opportunity to hang out with all of my friends, so why can’t all holiday parties just start and end super early? Why do they have to start at 8 and go on for forever? We can be fancy at 5 pm! I just want to go out with my friends for a few hours and then be home and in bed by 9. Is that too much to ask?!

Santa, you think it’s important that I get out of the house and socialize, don’t you? One of the best ways to accomplish this for me is escape rooms. I know that I talk about escape rooms a lot on this blog (which I’m sure you’ve read thoroughly), and that’s mainly because it’s one of the only activities that I do outside of the house. Obviously, I’ve written a lot about sitting on my couch and watching TV, but I’d really like to maintain the illusion that I occasionally leave the house. A new private escape room place has opened near us, which is great, but I would love it if the escape room places I already know and like would just add more rooms. I have so many escape room gift cards that are just gathering dust because I’ve done all of the rooms at those locations. They should know that I’ve finished all of them by now and I need more. How could they do this to me?!

I know that you love milk and cookies, Santa. How would you feel if you could only eat 2 cookies at a time? That would really make Christmas Eve tough, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, this has become my new reality. Christmas cookies are obviously one of the best parts of the holiday season. And when my mom bakes hundreds of cookies that live on my table for weeks, most of my holiday meals should be cookies. I’ve always binged Christmas cookies on the days leading up to and following Christmas, but now that I’m older, I can’t have too many cookies in a row or else I feel sick. You’ve had my mom’s biscotti before. You know how good they are, and now I can only eat 2 at a time. It is one of the greatest disappointments of my life. If I could have any holiday wish, I would definitely want to not feel sick after eating 12 cookies in a row. Or guilty. No guilt would be good, too.

I would love if you could bring back some of my favorite shows, Santa. The world definitely needs more Tuca and Bertie. We need more sassy animated birds showing us a great example of female camaraderie. Let’s bring it back! This next one may be a stretch, but I could really use more Eli Stone as well. I’m sure that you’ve already appropriately put whoever cancelled that show on the naughty list, but if you could take it one step further and bring it back for more episodes, I think it would make a lot of people happy. I almost wanted to ask you to bring back Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt as well, but that show declined so much after the first season that I think we can let that one die…

Finally, I would love for the creative inspiration and motivation that I’ve had for the past few weeks to stay. While I had a difficult time writing for most of October and November, I’ve recently been getting that creative spark back, and I really prefer writing to not writing. Sure, I’ve mostly only been able to write listicles, but hey, I’ll take it. I just want to be able to write because I really enjoy it, but sometimes the cyclical nature of inspiration makes that feel impossible. If you could make this burst of creativity and motivation last for, well, forever, I would really appreciate it.

And I think that’s it, Santa! Thank you for taking my wishes under advisement, and I hope that you have an easy night of work. Here’s to hoping that the cookies don’t give you acid reflux! Once you get those escape rooms places to create more rooms, you, me, Dan, and Mrs. Claus should do one together! We’ll make a night of it. What are your feelings on ramen? We’ll let you know when we’re free since you’re free 364 days a year…

Love,

Renata

Photography by my talented fiancé. You can find him on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/hope_grows_here/