Picture this, chestnuts roasting on an open fire, Jack Frost nipping at your nose, a pocket full of mistletoe and a Yule tide song on your lips, then bang!! reality hits, your fortyish and a lone prospect for the jolly season. Just as you thought the dating scene couldn’t get any worse, the Christmas season is upon you and it’s all down hill from there.

We’ve become so wrapped up in the season of love and giving the smiles and festivities that we almost forgot about our otherwise drab hum drum domestic lives. We gather with co-workers at the office and at the homes of our attached friends for the weeks proceeding Christmas. You know the parties at the office where the boss gets a little to much cheer and makes a pass or winds up in the bathroom praying to the porcelain alter. There are a lot of get together with friends, the warm fires and the scent of baking and preparation of the holiday feast. Food, fun, frivolity, “tis the season”.

Then on Christmas day while we enjoy the warmth of family and close friends, the ax drops. The sister that everyone gossips about (the one with the drinking problem) shows up a bit in her Christmas cup, the Uncle and his two young wife who tells the jokes that don’t make sense, your brother and his hoochie wife and them six bad aaa(shut your mouth) kids, your aunt with everybody’s least favorite dish, the cardboard turkey and that cornmush that everyone lies about “Auntie, it tastes s-o-o-o good” NOT!!!.

Then of course your dear sweet sainted mom who is constantly nagging you about not being married. “Baby you’d be so much happier now if you’d only married Humphrey no name from high school,” as you try to no avail to explain the Humphrey is now “Hilda” and was never really interested in you. However she believes that you could have changed his sexual orientation, had you given him a little attention. All the nuts are not in the fruitcake.

I was out at the mall recently and being an Oklahoman by way of California, now living in our Nation’s Capital. I’ve retained my southwestern flair for hospitality, and as shoppers scurried from shop to shop with the atmosphere of the holiday season, faces aglow, fixed but happy smiles, and me dressed for the jolly season with my red and white Santa hat. I choose to spread a little joy, and good cheer by greeting everyone I met with a hearty, jovial and might I add sincere “MERRY CHRISTMAS and a HAPPY NEW YEAR”. I don’t know if it’s that Bernard Getz thing or sheer terror but some men and women here on the East Coast take offense to a stranger wishing them well and a merry Yule season. This season fear I’m sure, is well founded considering the crime rate but for God’s sake it’s Christmas people and a smile and a happy greeting is not a threat to your lives.

I don’t give up, I’m even more determine to bring some “Joy to the World” (my world) s-o-o-o, I decided to focus on one kind of joy. My pathetic social life and actually find someone special to spend the holidays with me, some of you remember a date, a reason for the season, someone’s lips to really use that mistletoe, a body to dance to the TEMPTATIONS Christmas songs.

I hope SANTA is going to read my work. I'll need all the help I can get or maybe Mrs. Claus has a girlfriend and I can get a hook up. In preparation for my search I networked with several single friends and in desperation a few married ones, got a list of all the parties, potential dates (recommendations from trusted friends and practicing Christians) checked and double-checked my personal hygiene.

Now where to begin – she’s got to have a great sense of humor, I dress to fit the occasion (Santa garb). I’ve been known to wear tights and wings for Valentines Day, and a green top hat on St. Paddy’s Day, even a black man is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day….she has to be sensitive, open, adventurous and spontaneous. A good dancer, and in good shape. I'm from the disco era when a song could last ten hours. She must have a sense of style, dress to impress, be sensual and creative, I mean bring some those fantasies out of the closet. Having a laugh that could wake the dead, a smile that lights the room, a personality that challenges my jealous streak. Someone who as I can work a crowd and never muss a hair.

Speaking of hair, it’s got to be the real stuff, nothing that during a dance falls on the floor. Eyes that sparkle and wink when she’s feeling amorous, a mind of her own and a little dirty minded doesn’t hurt but in a subtle way so the secret is only between us. Aggressive and submissive, strong of will, but on demand weak and coy, intelligent but creatively silly and playful, well read and well breed, but sassy and at the right moment a little trashy.

Santa are you listening? A friend, a fiend, a fanatic, a freak, a fantasy female. I want the one that men daydream about and never have the time to meet. Christmas comes but once a year but this is the gift that keeps on giving. I know your out there so get off the couch put down that remote, take that rag off the hair do you were saving to wear back to work. Spray on a little white diamonds, put on that jogging suit your drunk sister gave you last Christmas and get to the closest mall and look for the round faced guy with the sparkly eyes, big smile and large cheeks. I’m (I mean) he’s a jolly old guy and when I (I mean) he laughs his belly shakes like a bowl full of jelly. I’ve got a weight problem (I mean he’s got a weight problem). He’s been heard to say as he drives out of site “happy holidays to all and to all a good night”.

I’m told by the EXPERTS that loneliness is a state of mind. Like Alabama in the 50’s that’s a state I’m trying to avoid. Champagne for one is not an option for the New Year. My New Years resolution is “LOVE IS MINE IN ‘99”