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No part of this story may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, and events are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to real persons, places, or events is coincidental.
Copyright 2018 © Linda Lingle
All rights reserved
For Mom, who was savvy, stylish and
strong. I miss her more than I can say.
12/24/54
Dear Santa:
When you come to my house tonight, please bring me a teddy bear and a doll and a wagon. If that’s too much to ask, you can take my baby sister in return. She cries all the time and I’m tired of being the big sister. Love, Elizabeth
12/10/55
Dear Santa:
Please bring me a Raggedy Ann. My sister wants a Betsy Wetsy but I want a soft doll that won’t pee on me. Love, Elizabeth
12/18/56
Dear Santa:
Mom told me you weren’t coming to our house this year because I was bad and Brownie Green ratted me out. Can I help it if my sister fell out of the bed because she was hogging up the covers and I needed to get some on my side? Please come to our house, Santa, and I’ll let her have all the covers. Love, Elizabeth
12/15/57
Dear Santa;
Do you have any sleds up there? Bradley Drake has a sled and he thinks that makes him a Big Mahoff. Please bring me a sled so I can be a Big Mahoff too. Love, Elizabeth
12/12/59
Dear Santa:
Could I have a gun and holster set – with caps? I need to teach Bradley Drake a lesson! Love, Elizabeth
12/18/60
Dear Santa:
You know that bike you brought me for Christmas last year? Well, I smashed it into Bradley Drake’s mom’s Chevrolet while I was yelling, “Look, Pop, no hands!” and forgot how to put on the brakes. Mrs. Drake cried, and Mom said no more bikes for me EVER, and Bradley Drake laughed his ass off while I was getting mine yanked out of the wreckage. So, you see, Santa, I need a new bike to save face. Love, Elizabeth PS – this time you’d better bring one with hand brakes.
12/15/61
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake said you’re not real but what does he know? Bring me a chemistry set so I can turn him into a toad. Love, Elizabeth
12/21/62
Dear Santa:
I know you’re not real and I’m not happy about it. I begged my father to “tell me the truth” and he did, and now I wish he hadn’t. I told him I was going to forget what he told me and still believe in you, but he said it doesn’t work that way, and now Christmas is never going to be the same. I’m blaming this on Bradley Drake. Send that boy coal for Christmas. Love, Elizabeth
06/30/64
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake asked me to go to the Fourth of July picnic with him and ever since I said yes I’ve been sick in my stomach. Mom says that’s normal for a first date and I’ll get over it. She also thinks Bradley Drake is nice, but she doesn’t know him like I do. You’d better send me an exotic disease, so I can get out of this gracefully. Love, Elizabeth
12/02/67
Dear Santa:
Please let Tom Perry ask me to the Christmas Dance. I know it’s a longshot since he’s a quarterback and I’m not a cheerleader. But I think he knows who I am, now that I tripped over his football helmet in American History. Love, Elizabeth
12/10/69
Dear Santa;
Please let me pass my Biology final so I don’t end up flunking out of college and “disgracing the entire family, living and dead, on both sides of the Mississippi.” Mom’s such a drama queen, isn’t she? Love, Elizabeth
12/15/70
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake asked me to the Kappa Christmas Dance. I don’t want to go with him but if I don’t, I’ll end up sitting at home watching Lawrence Welk reruns with my parents. I don’t know what’s worse, Bradley Drake or Bobby Boylen. Yuck! Love, Elizabeth
11/30/71
Dear Santa:
Please send Bradley Drake straight to hell. Just when I started to like him, he went and asked Nancy Myers to the Kappa Kristmas Karnaval. What’s so hot about blonds, anyway? Love, Elizabeth
05/17/72
Dear Santa:
I got a good job in New York and Pop won’t let me go. He says it’s a jungle up there, but what does he know? Please, Santa, send my father an open mind. Love, Elizabeth
12/20/73
Dear Santa;
Will you please make my mother understand why I have to be with my friends on Christmas and drink Sloe Gin Fizzes all day? I think she forgets what it’s like to be young. Love, Elizabeth
12/26/73
Dear Santa:
I’m never drinking another Sloe Gin Fizz for the rest of my life. Love, Elizabeth
12/26/74
Dear Santa:
Did you have to let Bradley Drake come home for Christmas and tell everyone I pretended to have malaria and broke our picnic date ten years ago because I was afraid to go out with him? My sister thought it was hilarious, and now she keeps asking me if I’ve got cold sweats. Jeez. Love, Elizabeth
12/01/75
Dear Santa:
Please send me a good hairdresser in a hurry! I just found out the hard way that it’s not a good idea to dye brown hair blond in three easy steps. Green may be a great Christmas color, but not on hair. Help! Love, Elizabeth
12/23/78
Dear Santa:
I just got a notice that my tenth-year high school reunion is coming up next May and I am not thin, rich or blond. Send me a winning lottery ticket and I’ll take care of the rest. Love, Elizabeth
05/20/79
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake showed up at the reunion and spent the whole time making goo-goo eyes at Nancy Myers. I wanted to puke! Thank God Michael Walker had the good sense to be impressed that I’m living in New York – even though that could change when he sees my eighth-floor walk-up. He’s coming to visit next month, so please send an elevator to 367 West 37th Street quick! Thanks, Elizabeth
12/22/80
Dear Santa:
Could you please inspire Michael Walker to pop the question this Christmas? Mom and Pop both like him a lot, but I’m not holding that against him. Love, Elizabeth
12/20/81
Dear Santa:
Why did I think a twilight Christmas wedding would be a good idea? Do you know how hard it is for caterers to get fresh food for 300 people this time of year? Pop keeps offering me money to elope and I hate my wedding dress. I wanted to wear Mom’s, but she reminded me that I ate all of the wax beads off of it when I was ten, so now I’m stuck with this frilly Cinderella thing that my mother picked out. When I told her it was MY wedding and I should have what I want, she told me the RULE OF WEDDINGS, which is: a girl doesn’t get to plan her own wedding, her mother does. Where does she get this stuff? On top of all that, for the first time since I was four, they’re predicting a white Christmas and I just know I’m going to be stuck spending my honeymoon in Newark because our flight to Aruba was cancelled. So, Santa, here’s what I want for Christmas this year: a wedding dress by Vera Wang, clear skies, and enough food to feed everybody. I’m begging you. Love, Elizabeth
12/24/82
Dear Santa:
This is my worst Christmas ever! I look like a whale and it’s no consolation that I’m eight months pregnant and supposed to look like a whale. The apartment we live in is small and drafty, and I miss my job. I’m going to make a horrible mother and I want to go back to New York and be a thin free spirit. Mom says it’s just my raging hormones talking, and I’ll get over it. And Pop just says: “Get over it.” I peeked at all my Christmas presents (and isn’t it just like Michael to get me a sexy negligee when it’s all I can do to fit into an army tent), and now I won’t have any surprises. My sister just got another promotion and is buying size two designer suits. And Bradley Drake married blond and beautiful Nancy Myers and I’m stuck here, fat, frosty and feeling sorry for myself. When did life get so complicated? Love, Elizabeth
01/11/83
Dear Santa:
Mary Kathleen arrived today! We named her after Mom and my big-shot sister. Now we really are a family and Michael couldn’t be happier. We’ll see how happy he is when he has to get up for the 2:00 AM feedings. Love. Elizabeth
03/01/86
Dear Santa:
Thank you for letting us have one last Christmas together. Pop was in remission and was his old self, regaling us all with stories, including the one about how he ran out of his moccasins and chased me down the street in his stocking feet yelling: “Brake, brake, BRAKE, GOD DAMNIT!” before I crashed into Mrs. Drake’s car. Pop would say that death is a part of life but this is almost too much to bear. Please send me and Mom and Kath the strength to get through this. Love, Elizabeth
12/23/87
Dear Santa:
I want romance! I want excitement! I want to be a size ten again! (Ok, for the first time ever.) Michael says I’m as beautiful as the day he married me, and that life is as exciting as you make it, but he needs glasses and wouldn’t know excitement if it bit him in the ass. Please, Santa, send me an adventure! Love, Elizabeth
12/24/90
Dear Santa;
When did I get to be forty? Michael says I should stop whining about how old I am and start writing those romance novels I’m always yammering about, but when I think of romance novels, I think of Fabio and then I think of “I can’t believe it’s not butter”, and then I think about bodies and butter and that is the end of that. Make me twenty again and I won’t ask you for another thing ever. Love, Elizabeth
12/01/92
Dear Santa:
It’s been eight months and I still haven’t heard from Doubleday. Please bring them the good sense to publish my novel, pay me a trillion bucks and book me on Oprah. Thanks, Big Guy. Love, Elizabeth
11/08/94
Dear Santa:
Did you have to let Bradley Drake call in on Larry King Live and tell the world that I used to lip-sync “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah” to him out of my third-floor bedroom window? Elizabeth
12/18/95
Dear Santa:
Will you please use your influence to get me on a flight back to Newark? I HAVE to be home for Christmas! Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan can finish the movie without me, but Michael won’t have the faintest idea how to decorate the tree or make the ham if I’m not there. I’ll take coach. I’ll ride with the baggage. I’ll even perch on the back of your sleigh and you can drop me down the chimney as you fly by. Just, please, Santa, get me there! Love, Elizabeth
03/21/97
Dear Santa:
Was it too much to ask to be nominated for an academy award for my romantic comedy? You did it for Nora Ephron! Elizabeth
12/14/98
Dear Santa:
Please bring Mary Kathleen a boyfriend and a cure for acne before I lose my mind. Love, Elizabeth
09/06/99
Dear Santa:
It’s Labor Day and how fitting since I feel like I’ve been giving birth to this novel for eighteen years! If you don’t send me an inspiration soon this book is going to turn into a horror tale and then I’ll never get Robert Redford to play the lead. Love, Elizabeth PS – And no listening to Michael about this. Robert Redford means nothing to me – or to any other woman in America with breath in her body.
12/17/00
Dear Santa:
Please bring Michael a new heart. I can’t live without him. Elizabeth
10/14/01
Dear Santa:
Mary Kathleen wants to drop out of college and be with me since Michael died. Bring her the good sense to see it my way and please bring me a good night’s sleep. Elizabeth
06/22/02
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake sent me a lovely condolence card and now I can’t hate him forever. He’s divorced and wants to meet for drinks. I’d rather shave my head but what the hell? What can happen? Elizabeth
07/05/03
Dear Santa:
Bradley Drake gave me a diamond ring for the fourth of July and wants me to be Mrs. Drake, like his mother, who hated me until the day she died for crashing into her Chevrolet. This is not good karma. Elizabeth
12/24/03
Dear Santa:
Brad still can’t believe I went through with the wedding. During the ceremony, when we were supposed to be gazing lovingly into each other’s eyes, he whipped out a vial labeled QUININE, which he had standing by in case I contracted malaria at the last minute. We move into a new house next month and Mary Kathleen is helping me pack during her Christmas vacation. She says my life turned out just like one of my novels but that’s not quite true. If it was, I’d be 33 instead of 53 and Brad would look like Mel Gibson instead of Ben Stiller. But, you know, Santa, life is good! Merry Christmas! Love, Elizabeth