20 December 24, 2008

Dear Santa:

Another year has come and almost gone but I hope you will still have time to spread some holiday cheer to all.

This year I am thankful that the tide didn’t come into the store again. The chest waders were a good gift Santa, but I am hoping I will only need them for fishing and not wading in the store.

I am also thankful for all those people who took to heart the idea of shopping local. The Greater Newburyport area is made up of so many small businesses that need the support of all the people if those businesses are to survive. We provide many jobs to people in the area and the money received from customers goes into local banks. The money we deposit in the local banks helps those banks to make loans to local folks.  A local economy is after all, just a big recycling of money from one person to another and back again. Santa, give an extra gift to those who try to shop local first.

I am thankful that my children have been able to graduate college and go on to making a new life for themselves. It is hard to see them “leave the nest” but it is so rewarding to see it happen.

We can probably re-hash the wish list from several years. The eyes seem to be holding their own, but it would be nice to be able to read any size font in low light. The problem is, any light now seems to be low light.

A great gift for all of us over 40 would be a new set of knees. I don’t know what all of us did at a younger age to wreck our knees, but somebody is getting rich doing knee surgeries.

A bit more stamina would be a good present too. For some reason, I have a hard time doing now what seemed so easy to do when I was 30.  It may have something to do with the recliner. Each evening, it seems to wrap its arms around me as soon as I sit down on it.  The next thing I know, Jay Leno is doing his monolog. We really need a new recliner or some kind of fix on the old one.

After all the snow we have had the past week, a present to all would be an early spring. It could start in late March. Slowly warming weather thru the month of April, followed by a warm May. Rain only at night, warm sunny weekends, what most of us would call a real spring. We haven’t had a real spring in so many years. This would be a nice year for an old fashion spring.

Well Santa, hopefully you can make everyone’s wishes come true. If you can fill my wish list, I will be a happy boy.