Dear Santa Hoss,

For the fifth year in a row I am writing in hopes of catching you before you and your team of eight Thoroughbreds arrive at my Human’s house. We have long enjoyed a good working relationship, as I first came to you in order to set the record straight about my own behavior throughout the year and later began sending you my suggested Christmas lists for the Human.

October is upon us and as I have learned, this means that the Humans celebrate cooler weather in some very strange ways.

While I am on board with flavoring every imaginable drink and dessert with pumpkins and apples (as long as the Biped shares), I must say as someone who has studied human psychology, I find the costume element all too predictable.

For most of my training career with this Human, I have pretty much run our cross-country courses solo. How else can you look at it, when she has yet to keep from fainting somewhere between the start box and finish flags?

At long last however, I’ve begun convincing her to keep her eyes open as I step gingerly over the 2” by 4”s and half-decayed straw bales we typically encounter in the starter division, and we’re beginning to school over new types of questions.

Questions that are actually, you know, questions.

Dear Santa Hoss, 

By now, you know me well enough to realize that I am one of the best-behaved creatures on your list every year. Really, my capacity as a Trainer of Humans makes me a sort of Deputy Santa, I suppose.

That is why, for another year, I am not writing to correct the libel my Human will have tattled to you regarding The Incident Of The Minor Concussion or The Time I Sneezed On Her Good Breeches.

I was recently weeding through my Facebook feed and noticed that several of the Humans I follow have been posting Instagram photos with extensive captions (which could really use editing) with the #30daysofthanks hashtag.

After consulting with my social media manager, I learned that this is an exercise Humans use to publicly convince themselves that their tiny little lives are full of meaning.