A few letters culled from Santa’s mailbag:

MAKING THAT LIST, CHECKIN’ IT TWICE

Once again, your Humble Columnist has scored a major journalistic coup. At no small expense, and at some personal risk, I have managed to acquire documents that take you behind the scenes of perhaps the world’s most secretive organization. Here, then, are a few letters culled from Santa’s mailbag:

Dear Santa:

I have been extra good this year. For one thing I’ve done a great job of putting up with you-know-who. Now that I have my own house, I’m going to need a few things. So this year for Christmas, I want 10 sets of towels, all marked HERS.

Hillary, New York

Dear Santa:

Now that you-know-who has her own place in New York, it’s time to let the old hair down, if you know what I mean. Please send a big box of Partagas cigars (and I’m gonna get to LIGHT ‘em this time!), a keg of brewski, and a year’s subscription to Penthouse.

Bill, Washington, DC

Note to staff: Let’s set Chelsea up with a Christmas trip to Aruba this year. Poor kid deserves better than spending the holidays with these two. -S

Dear Santa:

I just want to say that Orrin Hatch has been very good this year. Orrin Hatch has fought hard for the rights of Americans to be free of violent music, racy movies, and homosexuals in the Republican party. A lot of people don’t know, however, that Orrin Hatch is also a recording artist. So what Orrin Hatch wants more than anything this Christmas is a chance to hang out with Sheryl Crow.

Orrin, Utah

Note to staff: Let’s send little Orrin some pronouns as well. –S.

Dear Santa:

I have been good this year. I have been studying hard, and now can name several world leaders, even though the only names I can really recall are the funny ones, like Vladimir Putin and B.J. Habibi. This year, I’d like one of those Palm computer organizers so I can keep the rest of them straight.

George

Note to staff: With his money, let him buy his own damn organizer. –S

Dear Santa:

I have been very very good this year, better than all those other candidates. And what I’d really like for Christmas is to find out what happened to my upper lip.

Gary

Note to staff: Who is this Gary person? -S

Dear Santa:

Gary Bauer. I’m a presidential candidate. Don’t you know me? I was an undersecretary of Education during the Reagan administration, and now I want to run the country.

Gary

Note to staff: I made my list and checked it twice, and I never heard of this yo-yo. Send him a fruitcake. –S

Dear Santa:

Have I been good this year? Listen, fella, I spent five years in a Viet Cong POW camp! Haven’t you heard about that?! And I’m a maverick, see? I’m not going to tell you things just because you want to hear them. You got that? Do YA? HUH?

John, Arizona

Note to staff: Send Johnny some tranquilizers and alert security. –S

Dear Santa:

I have been very very good for years now, and that’s the problem. Despite the fact that I’ve moved away from Washington, opened my own office, and am appearing in jeans and sweaters rather than my usual blue suits, everyone still treats me like a wimp. This year for Christmas, I want something that makes me look like a real Alpha male, as one of my advisors put it. Can you help?

Al, Nashville

Note to staff: What am I, a miracle worker? Send him a fruitcake. -S

Dear Santa:

This year, I need a year’s supply of canned food, a water purifier, a woodstove, and the biggest gas-powered generator you can get me. And I need them all by New Year’s Eve.

Bill G. , Redmond, Wash.

Note to staff: You think he knows something we don’t? –S

So there you have it, folks. And let me take this opportunity to wish everybody a happy holiday, whichever one you celebrate.

Dusty Rhoades is a lawyer in Southern Pines, North Carolina, who’s one of the few people he knows that actually LIKES fruitcake.

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