What I Want for Christmas

Sometime back in the 90's, during the years of my youth, Amy Grant came out with what I considered at the time, a pretty cheesey song entitled "My Grown up Christmas List."

"So here's my lifeful wish
My grownup Christmas list
Not for myself but for a world in need

No more lives torn apart
And wars would never start
And time would heal the heart

Everyone would have a friend
And right would always win
And love would never end

This is my grown up Christmas list"

What a dumb song, change the channel, I thought in my 14-year-old mind. I'm going to throw up.

When I was a little girl, a teenager, and even a young adult, Christmas was about getting that thing I really, really wanted. Much in the same way that Ralphie dreamed, craved and fixated on his beloved Red Ryder BeeBee Gun, I too had my deep deep desires of the heart... a Baby Feels So Real, Strawberry Shortcake's pie kitchen, Annie's Mansion, Pink and Pretty Barbie. And then there were the later years... new Alpine Skiis, Gerbeaux jeans, my own CD player, the hundreds of books I could not live without at the time and still very much want to read.

Now one of the greatest delights of my year is watching Grace and Jack dive into their presents with all of the joy and excitement I can so much relate to from my youngsterhood. They scream and giggle and nearly explode with kid gusto as tissue paper flies across the room. As I watch them tear open their presents with unadulterated enthusiasm, all I can feel is delight in its purest form.

Who of us does not look at a sparkling tree surrounded by presents and not remember the awe that words cannot describe, wondering if the treasure that we so much craved was in one of those heavenly packages? We were all little people once.

I'm not sure when my childhood present cravings faded, sometime after the year 2000. It certainly didn't happen overnight, as with many realities in life, time makes its changes. Sometime during this past decade, the thrill of opening the present I'd been dreaming about, the thrill of material possessions themselves, just disappeared... shazam, caput, no more. Where it went, I have no idea... perhaps it is floating out there over Lake Michigan, beside the cloud of profanity that Ralphie's father spun as he battled the furnace on Hester Street so many years ago. Who knows? Shazam, caput.

And now here I am, sitting beside the Christmas tree, no longer a blonde haired, blue eyed baby girl, wondering what happened to the last 30 years, reflecting on the lyrics of what was an annoying top 40 Christmas song during my high school years. Maybe my materialistic desires have changed over time, as most things do in this life. But there is one thing that has not.

As I sit here and contemplate those things that I really do want for Christmas, there is a little blonde-haired, blue eyed girl sitting here with me, the little person that I used to be, filled to overflowing with innocence and optimism, a child who does not yet know deep disappointment, injustice, and cold reality.

When I am dangerously honest with myself, these are the things that I want for Christmas:

*I want every child in the world to have a mom and a dad. And not just any mom and dad. Parents who adore and delight in them. I want the word orphan taken out of the dictionary.
*I want the war to stop. I want the taliban to get over themselves, get rid of their guns, and start feeding the homeless, and building schools so that little girls who've never been able to go to school can get an education. I want all of our troops to come home to their families, and never leave again.
*I want there to be no need to take our shoes off at the airport because we have nothing to be afraid of.
*I want all of the people in the whole world who have a diagnosis of cancer to receive an immediate clean bill of health.
*I want every disabled person in America, in the world, to never be shunned or mistreated. I want every person who is blind, deaf, or has a mental impairment to feel like a valued member of society.
*I want Dan to be able to go deer hunting with his Dad today.
*I want every minute reseemblance of racism to disappear from this planet for eternity.
*I want efficient and fair distribution of food, good nutritious food, for everyone in the world who is hungry.
*I want Detroit to be the #1 city in America for quality family living. I want the hood cleaned up. I want the public schools to thrive.
*I want the kids in Uganda to not get malaria anymore.
*I want every person in Haiti to have a home to live in, a home that is safe, where they have access to clean drinking water.
*I want conflicts to be reconciled and forgiveness to prevail.
*I want the world to be peaceful.

This is my grownup Christmas List