My Grown Up Christmas List

Dear Santa,

When I was a child I used write to you and ask for Tonka Toys, G.I. Joe's and toy airplanes.

Those were the days when my friends and I used to laugh all day without a care in the world.

Throwing snowballs, building igloos and making snowmen; surrounded by the innocence of our age.

Today I present to you, Santa, my grown up *Christmastide list.


I wish for:


1. The hungry to be fed.

2. The homeless to have homes.

3. All the wars to end and the World to live in peace. What's all that fighting for anyway?

4. All the caged animals to be set free.

5. Every man, woman and child who walks the Earth to feel the freedom that I feel.

6. People to think more about their surroundings and really want to make them better.

7. All people to follow the Golden Rule and love their enemies as they do their friends.

8. All the murderers to stop killing and seek the help they desire.

9. The child molesters and abusers to stop robbing us of our youth.

10. Someone to find the cure for AIDS.

11. The strength to stop the pain that I see around me.

12. New born babies to be healthy. And for pregnant women to stop doing drugs!

12.5 Addicts to find the strength within themselves to come clean.

13. All the races in all the World to come of age. To stop seeing the colour of someone else's skin

or ethnic background and see everyone as brothers and sisters.

14. The rain forests' to remain so that every Human Being, animal and plant on Earth has a

fair chance to survive.

15. Chemical waste and pollution to end so that our trees don't continue to die from Acid Rain.

16. People to stop thinking so much about money and remember that there's more to life than

the size of their bank accounts.

17. The Seven Sea's to be clean so that the fish and all that inhabit them are assured a natural

death.

18. To stop seeing so much land wasted. For, some day, we are going to run out of space.

19. To see the divorce rate go down and make sure we love the one's we are with.

20. People and countries to be given back their stolen land.

21. People to learn more from past mistakes.

22. Finally, I want to see more Peace, Love and Understanding around the World. People
should know the differences of others and learn to respect those differences. To put down
their guns, because in the past twenty centuries forced death and destruction of others
has rarely gotten us anywhere. Nor has it much changed the situation we're in; accept for a
few million more dead... Peace, Love and Understanding.

So Santa, this is my grown up Christmas List. I realize that you can't do all of my wishes at once,
but for the sake of all new born children, if you could do as many as possible I know it would make their World a little brighter.

With Love,

John V. La Selva (1992)

*Christmastide is the Holy period between 12/25 and 1/06.