Dear Santa, How are you and Mrs. Claus? Please say hi to the elves for me. (Can you still call them elves or is that politically incorrect? Do you have to call them vertically challenged toymakers?)

I only want a few things for Christmas this year, Santa. Don't worry about jewelry. I can guilt my husband into buying me some. And I can buy my own clothes. No offense, but I'm just not comfortable having you pick out clothes for me. A red jacket with white fur trim and black boots may look great on you, but they're not really my style.

Here's what I want for Christmas.

1)Use of a flying reindeer on Christmas day so I can visit my whole family even though they're scattered in different states. I only want to borrow the reindeer for a day since I'm not sure that the neighbors would be too happy about having a reindeer parked in the driveway. And my town may have some ordinances against it. Also, I don't want to have to clean up piles of reindeer poop. (I wonder, since I've never seen reindeer poop, does it fly too? If so, your stable elves really have my sympathy.)

2)While we're on the subject of loaners, I'd like to borrow a few of the elves to help clean my house. I realize that they're terribly busy before Christmas, but what do they have to do on New Year's Eve anyway? It would be great if they could clean up after my party so I don't have to start off the New Year welcomed by the stale smell of champagne that's been sitting all night.

3)The next Harry Potter book before anyone else gets it. I know it's not due for a few years but this is going to be a tough one with all the security involved so I thought you might start thinking about it now. And Santa, can you please get J.K. Rowling to make the next book shorter? I read the last one out loud to my daughter and I got a bad case of Severus Sore Throat.

4)The gift of youth. I don't mean the slimy stuff that comes in a jar, I mean the ability to recapture a sense of child-like wonder that makes ordinary things seem special. I'd like to be able to look at a hamster and see it as a special friend instead of an annoying varmint that's going to leave little pellet droppings all over the place and cost me lots of money for silly plastic tubes. (Of course, as part of the gift of youth, it would be nice if you could also have a few people tell me how young I look.)

5)Another year where my pre-teen daughter likes to be around me. I don't expect that she'll like me all the time and some tantrums are okay. I just don't want her to make believe that I don't exist when her friends are around.

6)But most of all, please give me the gift of forgetfulness. I don't mean forgetting where my keys are (I can do that without any help from you); I mean forgetting other people's little mistakes and faults. I want to focus on the positives so I can remember what a wonderful year I had. And help me to remember that my family and friends aren't perfect. I'm certainly not, so I shouldn't expect them to be.

I realize that you're busy, so you don't need to wrap anything for me. Merry Christmas!