Story 62: What I Wanted for Christmas

             This year, I decided that I would ask Santa Claus if he could bring me world peace.

            “Santa, all I want for Christmas is world peace – could you just leave it for me wrapped under the tree?”

            “You know that’s impossible, and adults really shouldn’t be taking my time away from the children on the line, so get off my lap before I call Security!”

            I could see that was a dead end, so I lit a candle at Church and prayed really, really hard for world peace.  The next morning, I woke up to the same old garbage: no quick fix there.  There is a crèche set up near my neighborhood, and I walked over there one day and consulted with its residents.

            “What’s the secret?”  “Baa.”  “You guys usually only fight for survival – why can’t humans figure it out?”  “Moo.”  “Is it that there are too many of us crowding for space?”  “Oink.”  “Are we all just born evil?”  “Cluck-cluck-cluck.”  “You’re no help whatsoever.  Say ‘Hi’ to the Baby Jesus when he shows up in the manager, would you?”

            Why can no one give me world peace?  It’s not a selfish wish, and everyone would benefit – is planet-wide serenity too much to ask for?

            I went to my family’s Christmas party and when I was given my baby nephew to hold, I saw that the clichést of clichés was so for a reason: looking into his eyes, I saw pure joy and contentment and I felt that all was well in the two seconds before he began screaming for his bottle.

            Guess I’ll just have to settle for inner peace instead of world.  Oh well, there’s always next year.