By Shannon Carpenter

To the wonderful Carpenter Family,

Your Christmas cookies were so wonderful and thoughtful! I do appreciate you worrying about my sugar intake. Is that a hint of nutmeg and sawdust I taste? Yum, so scrumptious. You can tell your mother, who’s on a health kick, that maybe she can ease up on your dad. One cookie isn’t going to give Santa a heart attack. 

I know your dad made a pretty big deal saying that Santa would prefer peanut butter cookies, but you made the right call. I’m Santa, and definitely not your dad. That would be crazy, right? Who wants delicious peanut butter cookies on Christmas? I didn’t even know there was such a thing as a kale cookie. That really hit the spot. I wouldn’t think you could match the taste of seaweed, but you were able to pull it off! Well done! It’s amazing what one can do with soy-based almond flour this time of year. Of course, I would have enjoyed more than just one, I am Jolly old Saint Nick after all, but I understand that portion control helps with willpower. My corner of one cookie was very filling. 

I know you heard a lot of colorful words on Christmas Eve night when you should have been sleeping. That was just your dad, again I’m not him, staying up late trying to catch me. He’s a strange fellow, isn’t he? And just so you know, the phrase “What the heck is this cookie? Where are my good cookies!” is an adult euphemism. It means Merry Christmas and Peace on Earth.

But maybe next Christmas you can convince your mother to ease up a little bit on the holidays and give Santa a peanut butter cookie. And did you know that your father does not suffer from any disease that requires him to eat gluten-free? If you can pass that along to your mother, that would be swell.

Finally, it was very thoughtful of you to leave warm milk out for dad. I mean Santa. Me, I’m Santa and not dad. But it was very environmentally friendly of you to let entropy heat up the milk by leaving it out all night. Bacteria are people too, and I loved every bit that I chugged down just so you could see the lip prints on the glass. 

Have a very Merry Christmas this year. I’m off to the next toy that I have to put together because apparently buying little playhouses that require power drills seemed like a good idea to your mother.

Again, thank you for the sugar-free, gluten-free, taste-free kale cookies. They were fantastic doorstops.

HO HO HO,

Santa

(Who is still not your dad.) 

Shannon Carpenter is a professional humorist and the author of The Ultimate Stay-at-Home Dad manual.