Dear Santa / My Favorite Things / Stuff I'd Waste Money On If I Had Money To Waste

Santa Baby... just slip a sable under the tree for me...
Favorite Christmas song ever! I mean, favorite secular Christmas song. Surely my favorite Christmas song of all time is a hymn or praise song although none come to mind at the moment because Santa Baby is an earworm and once it starts, I can't mindsing anything else.

I'm running low on blog fodder (I watched the dogs today. The end.) so I thought it would be fun to share my Christmas wish list with you. I don't really do a wish list because ... well, when you're single and your kids are grown nobody really asks you what you want and to be honest, I never ask people what they want. I just buy stuff that I think they'd like. Surprises are fun, aren't they?

And if I could... just a public service announcement... if there's a single mom in your life, especially a truly single single mom (i.e., without a significant other) give her a little something that she can open on Christmas Day. It's hard to be the only one without gifts. Not that Christmas is about the stuff. It's just... when other people get stuff and you don't get stuff, it's depressing. It doesn't have to be much. Just don't let her feel forgotten. I always hated the first day back to work after Christmas because inevitably my co-workers would be sporting new clothes and new jewels and new bags. The time between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day is the worst time to be single. Everybody gets stuff, you don't. And if you're like me... as a single mom I made a lot of sacrifices and stretched the budget to the point of usually being out of grocery money by the time Christmas was over. I'd be eating peanut butter sandwiches and feeling poorer than ever. DUH-pressing!

For me, over the years it's gotten better. The past few years we've made Christmas Eve day our Christmas morning and by the time we go to bed on Christmas Eve, the gift exchange is over. In a way, it's nice to make *the day* about Jesus and not about opening presents or eating or anything else. It's a day that's truly set apart for me now and I like that a lot. Also, having Christmas Eve be the big day allows my kids the opportunity to be with their significant other's family and with their dad on Christmas and that makes me happy. I've got to tell you... I miss spending the actual day with my boys but them having other people in their life takes a lot of pressure off of me. I don't have to worry about filling their wish lists because I know there are lots of people in their lives who love them and do things for them. There's a special peace in my heart knowing that my kids are loved.

Ok... so my wish list/ favorite things /things I'd buy if I had money to waste list...

1. Crazy as it sounds.... I've always loved browsing gift catalogs from places like Swiss Colony and Harry and David's. I love those big towers of random assorted food stuff. I only window shop. I don't think I've ever ordered anything from one of those places but I can really waste hours picking out my favorite gift box. Good alternate: edible arrangements except for the fact that they use a lot of pineapple (I'm allergic) and they're even more expensive.

2. I have a strange addiction to coffee table books. I've never paid full price for one. I stalk Barnes and Noble after Christmas and find the ones that are 90% off. I've got a nice collection of them and if I ever have spare change after Christmas (which is never) I'm sure to spend it on some big photo biography of First Ladies or something random like that. I like the books with big pictures. It's that simple. My brother's girlfriend got me a book, "What I Eat" three Christmases ago and would you believe that it's one of three books displayed in my living room not on a bookshelf? (The other two books, in case you're wondering are The Bible and a scrapbook I made of the kids' photos when they were little.)

3. Silver rings or earrings. I never wear anything but silver and the jewelry that I wear never comes off. Every once in a great while I'll find an interesting ring and splurge... you know, spend $20 or so... and wear the thing until it's no longer a circle any more. I've had the same silver earrings in my ears for five years. I definitely get my money's worth out of my silver.

4. Comfy shoes. Especially Mary Janes. Must be flats, must be wide enough to not give me ingrown toenails. Slippers are acceptable, the more obnoxious and fuzzy the better. In the same category, fuzzy socks make me happy.

5. The Whine Cellar is close to perfect. The only thing missing is a kitchenette. I would settle for a coffee pot, a microwave and a mini-fridge then I'd never have to climb stairs except to join the WOTWC (World Outside The Whine Cellar).

6. The Whine Cellar is really close to perfect but a nice big fuzzy rug in the middle of the Living Room would make it so much cozier, don't ya think?

7. If I rubbed a magic lamp and a genie gave me three wishes, one of those wishes would be for infinite wishes. In that vein, for my Christmas wish list I would wish for gift cards to buy stuff forever and ever and ever. I need a RiteAid gift card (for my meds), a huge gift certificate to the two doctors I see regularly, cards for the two places I go regularly besides the doctor and the pharmacy: Ingles and the gas station. My wants and needs pretty much run a parallel course. And a gift certificate to zulily.com because that's my daily retail therapy site. I almost always just window shop and hardly ever buy but it would be nice to buy sometimes.

8. Santa, could you send me a few ads for my blog? You know, the kind of ads that some bloggers with huge readership are making five figures a month from? Please and thanks. Then we could pretty much eliminate wishes 1 through 7.

9. An MSNBC talking head bemoaned the use of the "racist and derogatory term dreamed up by a room full of white men" - Obamacare - so instead of asking for an overhaul of Obamacare, I'll be politically correct and ask for a repeal of the UnAffordable Health Care Act. Here's how you fix it: you take all those millions of dollars you spent on the website that doesn't work, you cut out all the bureaucracy needed to make people buy health insurance, you go back to being a barely functional government that isn't trying to develop a single payor healthcare system and you spend the money you've saved helping people who truly don't have access to affordable healthcare by providing it. For a fraction of what's been spent they could increase services available at local health centers. They could stop worrying about stealing from the very slim margins of profit that health insurers recoup and start putting limits on the exorbitant cost of health care. My lab work that I have to have done on every visit has increased from $25 per visit to $50 per visit because they've gone to an automated system. Doesn't automated mean less work? For a person who has never shown positive on any of the things they test for - reduce the frequency of testing. If I had insurance and that lab test was done for a pre-negotiated rate, it would probably be less than $5. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. If I bought into the cheapest Obamacare - I mean, Affordable Health Care plan - I would be spending several hundred dollars a month to have a $12,000 deductible which means that I would have to spend over $15,000 a year before I have any health insurance coverage at all.

I say all that to say this, Santa can you bring me some truly affordable health care this year? My life, health and sanity depends on it.

10. What more can I ask? How about a lovely Winter Wonderland, at least once this Winter. The kind where the snow is deep and the power stays on. Full melting and return to safe streets by the time I develop cabin fever and/or run out of munchies. No deaths. No suffering. Just a few days where White County is really white. That's all.

11. I need three of those really high tech poop removal systems for the cats. I want to know less about their bodily functions than they know about mine (and they all follow me to the potty... ) and not have to worry about scoopin'. For that matter, the absence of dealing with any animal bodily fluids would be awesome. I'd almost move that to the top of the list.

12. Straight hair with body. Not frizzy hair. Not hair that requires thirty minutes of taming every day. No split ends, few grey hairs. Not Farrah worthy hair, just low maintenance hair that looks presentable.

13. Low blood pressure and cholesterol and weight loss without work and while eating whatever I want. Is that too much to ask?

14. A big stockpile of common sense so that I can pass it out to all those who are lacking.

15. An elevator. Jus' sayin'.

16. More sleep. Austin tapped out on the dog watching duties yesterday morning at 5am. He relieved me last night around 7pm - which was nice - and he's on duty until I get back from the doctor this morning so he's going to want to sleep all day. I woke up on my own at 5am this morning and I want to go back to sleep so. so. bad. Hopefully the dogs will be as chilled out as they were during the day yesterday and we can all nap to our hearts content.

And for my family, my wish is that the fish will be biting, FSU wins the National Championship, Pop finds a golf course and golf buddies up here that he loves and doesn't lose his mind being retired, that my kids would be happy and successful, that Austin will find motivation, that my disability will be approved so that I won't be a burden and that we all appreciate each other more and more every year.