Unfortunate news out of Milwaukie, OR tonight: Santa Claus has just run out of Playstation 5s. It seems that every child in the affluent neighboring city of Lake Oswego received the coveted gaming system, but when Santa entered the city limits of Milwaukie, a mere hop, skip and a jump across the river, he had come up empty-handed.
“I’m not sure how this happened. I suppose one of the elves just made a clerical error when tallying up how many children were on the Nice List this year,” mused a bewildered Mr. Claus.
Even though he was out of PS5s, Santa wasn’t about to leave these children empty-handed. He dug deep into his sack, retrieving anything that would suffice. Little Susie got a ball of yarn. Little Billy: a sack of marbles. Sweet Rosie-Jean would wake up to find a new coat that coincidentally looks just like the one her classmate used to wear before her mom donated it to the coat drive at school.
Mr. Claus went on to say, “It wasn’t easy, but I did my best to make sure every child had a gift to open on Christmas morning. Those last couple houses were tricky, though. I had to pop the batteries out of the smoke detector at the Swanson house to give to little Johnny down the street. And boy do I hope doe-eyed Peggy likes that half a roll of Halls mentholated cough drops!”
It’s this type of resourcefulness that keeps the magic of Christmas alive and brings us all closer together. As we all know, it’s not about the gifts; it’s about spending time with the ones you love, counting your blessings, and never questioning why Santa loves your classmate David more than you, even though David is a terrible child and set fire to his cat during summer break.
Merry Christmas!
By CarolAnn Liebelt