I can still write Santa a letter tomorrow.

Here it is Christmas Eve. An evening spent with family; sipping black decaf coffee and pretending disgust at your parents telling stories of their childhood yet secretly hoping that your tales will one day be as intriguing and exciting. A night to write Santa yet another witty note and leave him a dill pickle and some 2% milk under the glow of the fluorescent tree lights. A night to sneak some See’s chocolate from beneath the Christmas tree and blame it on the dog. This night however I find myself captive at work on the east coast sans tradition. The morning began with a fairly balanced mindset as I continually reassured myself that it was fine to not be home for Christmas Eve; that times are a changing; and that I am obviously too old to be writing Santa a letter. However, once the sun set everything worsened in the most dramatic way.
While running late driving to my next client I literally drove into the middle of a Christmas parade. The attack came on all sides and the only instinctive action I took was to put my car in park. I gazed around at the smiling families lining the street on either side sipping what I knew was black decaf coffee. Fluorescent lights covering cars and floats passed me and lined up behind my car blaring holiday music. The families waved and smiled at me since I was parked in the middle of their parade. I swear a child waved a dill pickle in the air while her sister sipped on a cold thermos of 2% milk. And with that, my stable mindset catapulted into a downward spiral of conclusions. I was not only stuck at work, I was forced into being in a Christmas Eve parade when all I wanted to be doing was stealing chocolate from under my families tree and dreaming of the tangerine at the bottom of my stocking. I put my head in defeat on the steering wheel and prepared myself for the tears or the seizure from the neon flashing lights. However, just as “Here Comes Santa Clause” trumpeted from behind my car with jolly old St. Nick himself approaching in his sleigh, I took another instinctive action...
My hand darted to the radio where I blared DJ Pup Dawg and his hip hop mash up power hour. And with that mash up blasting you better believe I car-danced right there in the middle of that parade whilst reassuring myself that times really are indeed a changing; but it's ok if I write Santa a Christmas letter tomorrow; he’ll still get it in time. Oh, and I doubt anyone even noticed my dancing. I mean I was only in an over sized dodge caravan parked in a parade; Santa was in a neon blinged out sled throwing sugarplums and handfuls of Christmas cheer to the numbed gluttonous crowd.

Written Message

Dear wind,
You are the least loved of all earth’s elements. Although I do appreciate your magical ability to make things dance in the air, or make a field of wheat move like water I could recreate these tricks myself. Just give me a high powered fan. And please let me just observe a real body of water such as the ocean. I wish you would stop doing terrible things such as blowing down trees onto people or making birds (especially kingfishers, my favorite) unable to fly because of your gusty forces. Stop being so ferocious wind. Blow strongly only towards windmills. Occasionally you can send a light breeze towards flowers to pick up pollen and distribute it to the soil and plants; that would help the bees a bit. Never blow on my face, ears, or bangs ever again. Stop whistling in my windows and stop making my walk to work so miserable.
Bitterly, MM

What was that? The wind.

When I moved to the east coast, people told me my body would acclimate to the winter. Last year I scoffed at these individuals every time I stepped out of my apartment into the sheet of ice that was the air and began my dreadful walk to the T. Sometimes I even would scoff at them in my apartment when I would be shivering on my couch and visibly observing my breath leave my mouth. Now however, in my second winter on the right coast, I thought for a brief instant that I had fully acclimated to the cold. I would walk to the T on my way to work laughing victoriously to the silence of my teeth not chattering. I waved my hands in the air without my mitten covers on and said “Go ahead and blow on my digits all you want wind but this west coaster has acclimated. Ha!”
I was delighted with my defeat of the weather and was feeling rather bad for all the scoffing I had done; until I realized that the winter I thought I had acclimated to was actually autumn. Today it was 20 degrees. I stepped out of my apartment and paused for a second to revel in the fact that the cold air didn’t affect me. I shook my head and thought “20 degrees? Please planet earth. Let me feel something in the single digits.” I later realize I was still in the doorjamb. The warm air from the apartment building still caressed my back. The wind had not yet cut through my body to remind me that despite the fact that I thought I had consumed enough coffee to wake myself up, I remained asleep up until that very moment when the wind said good morning. As my teeth chattered all the way to work, I hastily snapped on my mitten covers and shoved my hands into my pockets while simultaneously attempting to cover even my eyeballs with my scarf. It was during this frigid panic that I realized this west coast body has most definitely not acclimated to the cold. Nor do I believe it ever will. Good morning winter wind, please don’t wake me up so abruptly tomorrow. Thank you.