I've got some words for you.
First of all, how dare you?
Let's just start with the celebrity deaths this year. You take Prince? Alan Rickman? Gene Wilder? A ton more that would take up this entire article if I typed them all? And now Carrie Fisher is in the hospital? (updated: Carrie Fisher is no longer with us, either) Instead of Santa coming with presents, I'm looking around for the Grim Reaper with his scyth.
And that's if Santa is even still doing his thing. He has global warming to worry about. 2016 is the hottest year in recorded history. If we keep ignoring it, Santa is going to come in a submarine as opposed to a sleigh.
Speaking of sleigh-ing things, let's take a look at the politics you brought us. Primarily, the sack of candied sweet potatoes leftover from the Jim Crowe Era. He essentially led a fun resurgence of people who want a truly "white" Christmas. This bratty toddler is no doubt on the naughty list because of all of the bullying, mocking, and grabbing things his tiny hands have no business grabbing but we still have to put up with him for the next several years.
There's plenty more: terror attacks, Aleppo, police shootings, Russian hacking, a horrible lack of justice in our justice system regarding sexual assault, refugees, and that gorilla who people seem to care about more than everything else put together.
Seriously 2016, how dare you? You have ruined everything!
Then again... Now that I think about it...
I guess we can't really blame a year. I mean, a year isn't a sentient being with free will (at least as far as we know). But humans are (at least as far as we know). So, I suppose that, maybe, we only have ourselves to blame.
That's kind of a bummer. And not nearly as jokey and satiricle as I was going for here.
But on the bright side...
That means that we have the power to make 2017 better.
So, 2016, we give you a lot of flack because we would prefer to laugh off the state of our world rather than do anything productive to fix it. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote that the greatest hinderence to change isn't the extremist who fights against progress, but rather the masses who remain apathetic.
Don't remain apathetic. Don't give up and start to believe that there is no point. That's not really in the spirit of Christmas, or the spirit of anything for that manner. The whole point of the holidays is believing (at least that's what Elf and every other Christmas movie that's been on for the last 2 months taught us). Try it.
So,
Dear 2016,
Sorry I got a little off topic here. If my train of thought was the Polar Express, it would have ended up somewhere in Istanbul instead of the North Pole. I guess I wasn't really writing to you anyways. It hasn't been a great year for the world, and we reeeaaaalllyyy want someone to blame. But, maybe there will be a Christmas/Hanukkah/Boxing Day/Kwanzaa/Omisoka/Yule miracle, and those of us stuck in apathy will wake up.
Anyways, Happy Holidays!
