Dear Santa

Dear Santa,

I'm sorry I doubted you it's just that some kids at my school made fun of me for believing in you.

Here is a list of the item(s) I would like for you to give to me.

* Skate 3 (Xbox 360)
* Castel Crashers (Xbox 360)
* Star War Force Unleashed 2 (Xbox 360)
* Ghost Busters (Xbox 360)
* Batman Arkham Asylum (Xbox 360)

If you cannot fulfill a certain one of my wishes please do not buy an alternative like if you can't make Skate 3 do not make skate 2 as an alternative and even if it's the same game for a different console like the wii or ps3 do not use that as an alternative

Sincerely,
Paul Lumba

"Mom," my then 9-year-old son Paul asked his mom in 2008, "I'm upset with Santa. He never gets me what I want. I asked him for an Xbox 360 and all he gave me are these stupid things that are made in China. I thought his dwarfs make toys in the North Pole. Why are these things made in China?"

His mom replied, "Paul, Santa ran out of Xbox 360s because so many poor kids in Africa want them. Those poor kids get nothing else for Christmas, and it's very important for them to get their wish."

"But those kids don't even have TV. How can they play with their XBox 360?"

My wife looked at me, suppressing her laughter.

I chimed in. "Oh, but their tribal leaders have TV sets, and electricity. The kids just take their XBox 360s to their leaders' houses so they can play their favorite games on them."

"I hate Santa," Paul said. "He never gives me what I want, only these stupid stuffs from China. His dwarfs don't even make these things."

"There are so many kids nowadays," his mom tells him, "and the dwarfs cannot make enough toys for everybody. So Santa is now buying toys made in China, like everybody else."

Fast forward to today. "Dad," Paul, now eleven, tells me. "Santa never gives me what I want, that is why I am asking him for only small things."

"You kidding?" I asked Paul, feigning incredulity. "I saw the list you sent to Santa. That's a lot of stuff you're asking from him. And, by the way, you are not using the correct punctuations. You have run-on sentences. Maybe we should revise your letter."

"Forget the letter, Dad," Paul says. "Here's what I want you to buy for me."

He told me what he wanted me to buy, something that costs $200. That's all that stuck in my head, that it would cost me 200 bucks. I didn't really hear what it was that he wanted. All I knew was that it would cost 200 bucks. And it was not just $200, of course, because the small items he wants from Santa all add up.

I'm a smiling Scrooge. Especially when it comes to buying things for myself and my wife.

"Paulits," I usually told her in Christmases past, "Let's not get each other big gifts. We both go out throughout the year and buy whatever we need. I can't think of anything that you and I don't already have. Every day, it seems, is Christmas day for you, with all the compulsive shopping that you do."

I hate shopping. Rarely do I go with Paulita shopping. And when I do, I always manage to disappear into a corner of the mall, sit and wait until I get tired of waiting. That's when I start to look for her. Usually that's a major production. Whenever Paulita is in the mall, she vanishes into thin air. I can never find her. Sometimes I suspect she hides from me. As soon as she sees me coming, she ducks into the women's fitting room.

Instead of relaxing on a comfy seat in the mall, I spend 90% of my time looking for her. Usually, I remember that I need something for myself, like batteries or a Just for Men hair dye. So I go to one of the stores that I know carries the stuff that I need, plus two cans of cocktail peanuts perched on a shelf near the checkout counter. I go in, pay for my stuff, and come out. I head for the seat in the mall where I was sitting just a few minutes ago.

Still no Paulita.

I think I have a theory that partly explains why the American economy is now dependent almost exclusively on the American consumer. Most American consumers are women. And they are a patsy for the store displays and merchandising that retailers have now reduced to a science. My daughter is graduating next year from the Fashion Institute of Design and Merchandising in LA, the same school where the internationally famous Filipina designer Monique Lhuillier studied and was some sort of a legend in. I'm going to ask my daughter if my theory is correct: that because of the science of merchandising which is aimed at women shoppers, women simply cannot resist going shopping and feeling like it's Christmas everyday, thereby fueling the American economy.

The empowered American woman shopper is a relatively recent phenomenon. In the old days, women were on strict budgets from their husbands. The husbands worked while wives took care of the kids and made the home and themselves pretty. Now, women occupy important positions in society and many out-earn their husbands. The woman shopper has become empowered. She buys what she wants, when she wants. Her husband has very little input in the shopping process.

Many of Paul's classmates are being cared for by their fathers. The moms work while the dads stay home. I can't say for sure that the phenomenon of the working wife and the stay-at-home dad is prevalent here in Las Vegas, but if it is, there's a reason for it.

Male employment in Vegas has dried up. The construction trades, the real estate field, the casino dealers jobs - all male dominated employment sectors - have laid off tens of thousands of workers and have not rehired the laid-off workers. So the men stay home.

Luckily for most of these families, women's jobs are not hit as hard. The nurses, other hospital workers, secretaries, retail clerks, hairstylists, etc. continue to work in droves. On top of that, traditionally male fields like sales are also employing a lot of women. Women are generally better salespersons because they are capable of more empathy than men.

After more than two years of lopsided male unemployment, the women's liberation movement is now complete.

Like I said, I don't know if most of the male parents of my children's classmates are stay-at-home dads. The kids that my son hangs out with, however, almost without exception have stay-at-home dads. Maybe it's because Paul is attracted to those kids, since he himself has a stay-at-home dad. I've been retired since 2004 and have been taking care of Paul 24/7 all this time.

While long-term unemployments is really bad for the dads' psyches, I can see that the kids themselves are flourishing. Dads make their sons like sports more. Dads teach their sons how to grow up and be a man. Dads teach their sons at an early age how to fight off bullies and assert their rights on the playgrounds.

Paul, taking his cue from me, also hates shopping. Sometimes I think he hates shopping even more than I do.

Going back to this business of Santa. I'm waiting until the stores run out of merchandise so I can tell Paul he can't have everything on his Santa list. I know that I have to buy the big item that he wants me, not Santa, to get for him. There's just no escaping that. But I don't want him to get everything that's on his list, which incidentally, will probably grow as Christmas fast approaches.

I want him to know that he is not going to get everything he wants out of life, and I want him to get used to that idea. That is an important life's lesson that he should be learning now, not when he's 30 years old.

In my own family, the younger children who were born shortly before my father entered politics and the family got wiped out financially, have done very well in later life. Better than most of us older kids, who got used to the good life when we were young. The younger kids knew at a very young age the value of money, hard work and grit and determination. They were more focused on their career objectives in later life than us older kids.

Having tasted hardship at a young age turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to them.

And now this letter from me to Santa:

Dear Santa,

Please don't give Paul everything he asks for. Leave out one or two of the items, just so he knows that in life he cannot get everything that he wants. It will be the most important lesson you will teach him.

Yours sincerely,
You