Dear Santa,

Howdy from Texas, big man. Hope things are well up at the North Pole, where I assume the ice hasn’t melted, the power grid works, and y’all haven’t deported any elves.

I’m writing because I have a few tiny Christmas wishes for next year. Nothing huge. Just small, achievable miracles on par with, say, turning water into Lone Star.

First, I’d like a Texas Legislature that can go one full session without inventing a new culture war. I know that’s asking you to violate several known laws of physics, but you’ve pulled off harder stuff (after all, you hit like a billion houses in one night). 

Also, I’d like a summer that doesn’t feel like I’m being slow-roasted in a giant cast-iron skillet. Maybe just a tiny break, a day where the sun isn’t personally offended by the idea of human survival. I’m not picky. I’ll take an afternoon where my steering wheel isn’t hotter than Satan’s Yeti tumbler.

Oh, and could you give us a mosquito population that chills out a little? I’m not asking you to wipe them out entirely, but maybe just knock them down to “annoying” instead of “armed militia.”

I’d also love a Texas road system that doesn’t treat every drive like Rainbow Road in Mario Kart. And if you could have TxDOT stop announcing a brand-new I-35 improvement plan every six months like it’s a new Beyoncé album drop, that’d be great. Maybe you can make the traffic better without doing any construction?

While you’re up there tinkering, could you also send us a cold front that lasts more than 11 minutes? The kind where everyone runs outside in hoodies — we’re not even asking for jacket weather! — yelling “FINALLY” instead of watching it vanish like its rent is due.

On a more personal note, I’d like H-E-B to open even more stores, ideally one inside my current H-E-B. Or maybe just a dedicated checkout lane for people buying nothing but tortillas, Topo Chico, and that weird salsa that looks like it was brewed in a witch’s cauldron. You make miracles happen, so feel free to go wild.

Also, if you could have ERCOT behave like a power grid and not a nervous raccoon in a lightning storm, that’d be lovely. I’d like to go one winter without wondering if my pipes are about to reenact “Frozen” (and not the fun sing-along parts).

And, Santa, if you’ve got any magic left, maybe you could do something about Texas wildlife acting like they pay property taxes now. I’m tired of rats digging holes in walls, raccoons treating my porch like a Buc-ee’s restroom, and coyotes walking through neighborhoods like they’re checking Zillow listings. A little boundary-setting would be great.

If you’ve still got bandwidth after all that, I’d appreciate a year where the wildest thing about Texas is the wildlife, like an armadillo waddling through a Whataburger parking lot, instead of everything happening at the Capitol, the border, and whatever fresh nonsense someone posts on Nextdoor.

Thanks for listening, big guy. I’ll leave out some cookies (Texas-shaped, natch) plus a Dr Pepper and a kolache for the road. If the reindeer want their own kolaches, you know where the Czech Stop is.

Yours in Lone Star survival,

Brian

PS: Oh, and if you could deliver a functioning Texas high-speed rail system, that’d be awesome. The trains don’t even have to go fast. Just faster than I-35 at 5 p.m.

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