In a place where the prime minister before the current one believed in the literal truth of the Adam and Eve creation myth, and the current prime minister believes she can work miracles with Christmas hampers, it's no surprise to find many public figures believe in Santa Claus.
Today, I myself join the believers–in Santa, not Adam, Eve, Yahweh, Allah and Co–and it's not just because a fat man in a flying sleigh pulled by wingless reindeer distributing presents globally in one night seems more credible than an omnipotent, merciful god who inflicts massive suffering on the creations he claims to love.
No, I find it easier to believe in Santa than God because Santa actually e-mailed me letters he received himself, and I've yet to see proof of God's existence. (If God really did answer prayers, Michael Bolton, Samson and Fabio Lanzoni would all "jealous" me; and a Halle Berry/Madonna sex tape would have leaked.)
Here, then, are letters to Santa from various folk. They are as authentic as West Indian politicians are honest.
Dear Santa:
Can you please give me an excuse for why the same government would pass one section (34) of an act giving a free paper to its financiers and get it proclaimed by the then-president in two days on a long holiday weekend, but the selfsame government has to wait six months for a presidential proclamation of legislation that would send corrupt people to jail? Send it fast, please, I need to open it before Christmas.
Kamla Persad-Bissessar
Handing Out Freeness,
Free Sheet
Dear Santa:
Please send us a bowler. Fast. Not necessarily a fast bowler, although that would be good, just any bowler, as fast as you can. Or please send South African captain Hashim Amla an airline ticket to Syria to lick down some infidels for ISIS instead of putting so much blows on us. We feeling to put on helmets before we start our run-ups.
JE Taylor, KAJ Roach,
SS Cottrell & SJ Benn,
Dog Firetrucking Tired,
Centurion Cricket Ground
Dear Santa:
Please bring some restraint to the Pakistani Taliban. Please remind them that instructions are to shoot only one schoolchild in the head at a time.
The Afghan Taliban,
God's Right Hand,
But Still Embarrassed by the Overkill
Dear Santa:
Please give a little bit of discernment to BC Pires. No matter how much harm he feels religion does to humanity, it's too early for the kind of joke above. Let him wait until we capture a few hundred more underage girls and force them to conversion. People might be ready, then, to see how horrible blind faith really is.
Boko Haram,
Against Everything Western,
Except Automatic Weapons
Dear Santa:
All we want for Christmas is a US/Mexican border-style wall going 30 feet straight up in the air, so nobody could scale it. All along the Lady Young Road.
Residents of Cascade,
Under Bandit Manners,
In Jail in Their Own Homes
Dear Santa:
Please send us a complete monopoly on broadband, fixed landline telephones, mobile phone communications and cable television.
Oh, wait! We have that already. Just some socks, then.
Cabled & Wire-tied Cash Flow,
Too Busy Counting Future Money
to Think About Present Upgrades,
But Enough Time to Watch
DirecTV Hungry
Dear Santa:
We know "Mamacita," "Pa�ol," "Margarita," "Venezuela," "Feliz Navidad" and "Vamos-vamos-vamos." But please send us two or three more Spanish words. We want to write another parang song, so there would be at least two in the entire genre.
It don't matter what the words mean, nobody does ever study that. But, apparently, "Real Madrid" is not really a Spanish word, somehow; neither "Christiano Ronaldo," even though the both of them end in "o".
All of Trinidad's
Parang Songwriters,
Beber Cervezas Burritos
Dear Santa:
A little sense, please, to the Diego Martin Regional Corporation, so we can open and good little Catholic girl children can finally get a proper education and learn birth control, premarital sex are all wrong, so they can grow up to be good, obedient wives.
The Arbor School,
Opus Dei In Limbo,
Not as Far from the Taliban
as the Tilt of Our Noses Might Suggest
Dear Santa:
A new stingy brim hat, please. Mankind sweat so much in this one outside Aria after the gig that the hatband gone through. But at least the bandits didn't make me lie on the ground at gunpoint, like they did the fans.
Kees Dieffenthaller
Robbery with VIP Section
Cipriani Blvd
Dear Santa:
Please send a little out-of-season ill will to Presidents Obama and Castro, please, please, please! Or tell the Pope to tell Raul that Barack called him a cabron. The moment Cuban tourism is reopened to the US, we're all firetrucked.
Every Caribbean Island Selling White Sand Beaches and Brown Skinned Girls,
And Lacking the Sense
to Legalise Ganja