I’ve practiced a lot of religions over the years and of all of them, my favorite is still the Fraternal Order of Eternal Christmas. It was a fairly small group that I helped put together in ’83 just outside of Lincoln, Nebraska. The basic tenet was that, for us, Christmas was every single day. We’d wake up every morning and open presents, then we’d all sit around and have a delicious group lunch. At night, we’d have Christmas Eve dinner with goose and stuffing and then we’d go to bed, waiting for the whole thing to happen all over again. I came up with this groovy creation story about Santa being a real man that arose from an elven tribe living among the polar ice caps. People really seemed to dig it. We got about thirty or forty followers before we got shut down by the State of Nebraska. Apparently, people were doing a lot of stealing to keep the religion going financially.

Man, the holidays really bum me out. Nobody makes me ham. Nobody bakes me cookies. Nobody buys me presents. I guess it has a lot to do with the fact that I’m not allowed to talk to my family anymore since the fire incident. Before you get all up in arms, let me set the record straight – I didn’t set a fire. I merely took everyone’s presents and threw them into the fireplace when they wouldn’t let me open one of mine early. No big deal, right? One present. That’s all I wanted to open. But no, my family has “rules” and “traditions.” Hogwash. Those squares always overreacted to everything anyway. Who needs ‘em? Not me. I still like presents though, even though I don’t usually get any. That’s why I put together a Holiday Wish List every year. Now that I’m a Syber-World Astronaut, I thought I’d put my HWL (Holiday Wish List) up on the Internets.

With the exception of brawling, I haven’t been much of a sports fan for a long time now. That all changed on Monday night after work. I was hanging out near that new Xavier Center by Scranton Prep looking for scrap building materials (the darkness gives me a better shot at scoring some of that sweet, sweet copper). After a few minutes, I started hearing all kinds of hooting and hollering coming from inside, so I wandered over to investigate. For a second, I hoped it was going to be a piñata festival. I had a dream once about being in the middle of a piñata festival and I’ve been waiting for it to come true. Lord knows I love hard candy.

Sadly, it wasn’t a piñata festival. I can’t say I was surprised though. I’ve been hoping for it for so long that I don’t even get disappointed anymore. I just accept the fact that one day, when I least expect it, I’m going to walk into a giant auditorium and people are going to be popping colorful papier-mâché burros and swimming in delicious hard candy.