Dear St. Nicholas,

I’m certain that you are going to look at the return address before opening this letter and experience immediate blood pressure issues. Chill, sleigh master. This time around, I’m really sorry about my little jokes over the last few years.

First of all, as I mentioned in my last memo of regret, I’m a bit shocked that you remain so sensitive about your belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly.

I thought my last year’s offering of a brochure noting deep discounts on Stairmaster products for exceptionally elderly toy factory CEOs along with a Christmas themed mug of tap water was a hoot.

Obliviously not.

Once again, you became rather crotchety and stuffed my stocking hung with care with fermented reindeer nuggets, a pair of elf-sized, profoundly tainted, Spandex drawers and a voucher for shedload of worthless shares for the Solyndra solar-panel company.

Thanks a lot. The taxpayers are still out $535 million for that fiasco, so, if I cash that chit, all I’ll end up with is a lifetime supply of outhouse Charmin knockoff squares for the lower Kenai. Ho, ho, ho, big boy.

Thus, I would like to change things up a bit and get this season off to a better start.

From now on, I promise to leave you the classic milk and cookies even though you may find the tendering a bit boring considering the special herbs some people around here like baked into their goodies.

Trust me, I’m trying the best I can to get back to our traditional relationship before things get any worse.

If this keeps up, I can foresee restating my perpetual simple wish for a plush down pillow and then awakening to discover that unsettling Mikey dude from My Pillow hovering near the bed hawking a two-for-one special. The guy has definite issues.

His latest proclivity for creeping out folks is lurking behind bathroom cabinet mirrors in hopes of scoring a sale. This behavior is not only deeply disturbing but usually ends up scaring the screaming bejeezus out of some drowsy soul in search of their toothbrush.

If he tries that in our neighborhood, he’d better have a proctologist on retainer who specializes in formed-foam removal.

Look, to be truthful, I’d rather go back to when you just dropped off a used potato sack and a markedly irked goose along with brusque instructions to build my own head cushion. K?

Back to business.

I’m finding it exceedingly difficult this time around to just chill out and not respond to your lack of sense of humor and unfailing dumps on my Yuletide merriment. Nevertheless, I am determined to be the better man.

Instead of trying to retaliate for your unwarranted revenge scenario last year, I will heed to my beautiful bride who wishes that we spend our Christmas Eve wedding anniversary sipping on primo vino and noshing imported cheese.

We will no longer man a listening post in hopes that when out on the lawn there will be such a clatter that we’ll spring from our bunker to see what’s the matter then post a YouTube of you all in fur, from your head to your foot, gathering fresh nuggets while shaking off your last stop’s soot.

No more cheap shots where I end up with something in my stocking that requires immediate incineration and I’ll lay off leaving you six packs of the up-to-the-minute, fading celebrity, diet drink that absolutely guarantees a thirty-day, thirty-pound, weight loss if don’t ingest any calorie-enhanced substances during the month.

Personally, I don’t think you can go long without premium grub before you commence leering at your eight-tiny reindeer while fantasizing about turning the diet concoction into a doable marinating sauce. But, that’s another conversation.

So, let’s call it even and turn over our propensity for continuous bickering and snide snivels to those who are experts at it. Are you listening politicos?

Of course, they aren’t. Buried under all of those lumps of Christmas coal they come across as lacking any kind of sense. Why? Because it’s not what they’re covered with, it’s where their heads are.

With that said, I’ll just wish a happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

It’s been another great year.

Nick can be contacted at ncvarney@gmail.com and offers his humble apology to either Clement Clarke Moore and Henry Livingston Jr. who are probably still smiting it out in the hereafter over the authorship of “Twas The Night Before Christmas.”