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.