Dear Santa

Dear Santa,
My name is Norma Jean Portie and I need to explain a few things. I try really hard to be a good dog but sometimes I forget, or things just don't work out the way I thought they would. The past couple weeks have been really hard and Mom kept telling me that you were watching, but last night she got mad and said that Santa is skipping our house this year because I was bad.

You see it all started about a month ago. Every spring when the mud comes, Dad puts straw in the yard to help keep our feet clean. This year he decided to get a head start and he bought straw around Halloween and spread it in the yard. I went out and played with the others but suddenly I got really, really itchy and I couldn't stop scratching. I scratched and chewed on myself all day and all night. Mom and Dad would yell at me to stop scratching, but I couldn't stop. Mom gave me allergy pills but I still couldn't stop scratching and I was starting to get sores from all the scratching, so we went to visit Dr B.

He told us that I'm allergic to a little mite that lives in straw. Other years when we've had straw, it was later in the year and there had been cold weather that killed the mites but this year it wasn't cold and the mites were biting me. Dr B gave me some strong allergy pills and Mom started giving me some baths with medicated shampoo. The shampoo had to stay on my skin for ten minutes, so I had to stand in the bathtub all wet and soapy for ten minutes. Do you know how long ten minutes is?? It's almost forever. 

I couldn't go in the back yard where the straw is, so Mom walked me in the front yard with Fudge and I had to eat upstairs with him too. I couldn't run and play with the rest of my pack. But after a month of all this, I'm feeling so much better. I'm not itchy and my sores have all healed up. Then we had some cold weather that maybe killed the straw mites. So a couple days ago Dad took me into the back yard to run with my sisters. It was great to be free again and I didn't scratch when I came inside. So the next day he took me out again and when he wasn't looking I rolled in the straw. Mom was not happy. She picked all the pieces of straw out of my coat and talked to herself while she was doing it. It's not good when she talks to herself out loud. So now I can still go in the yard but they watch me and yell if I start to roll. Sorry Santa.

Next is the blanket thing. You see, Mom has this soft, warm pink blanket that she likes to keep on the couch in the living room. She puts it over her feet at night when she's knitting and sometimes she takes a nap and pulls it up around her. When Mom isn't using her blanket she let's us curl up on it and it's so comfy. The best time to snooze on the blanket is just after Mom takes it out of the dryer when it's still nice and warm. The other day I saw Mom take it out of the dryer and carry it into the living room. Then she went to do something in the kitchen. I thought this was my chance to beat the others to the couch, so I ran fast and jumped onto the couch. How did I know that Mackey was already curled up in the blanket? She's pretty small and I didn't see her there. I didn't really look  but there was plenty of room for both of us.  Mackey let out a scream like I was killing her. I hardly touched her. Mom came flying in and told me to get down and said Mackey was there first. Honest, Santa, there was room for both of us. Mackey just doesn't like to share.

When I got down from the couch, I didn't notice that my foot got caught in Mom's yarn. Really, I didn't notice. I know not to touch Mom's yarn. Sydney is the only one who doesn't understand the rules about Mom's yarn. I dragged the yarn all thru the living room into the kitchen and Mom wasn't too happy about it. I didn't mean to do it and it didn't hurt the bird she was making,honest it didn't. See...

The really bad part happened yesterday. Mom spent all afternoon making Christmas cookies. Some are for you, Santa. She got kind of tired, so she put them on the kitchen table to decorate them. She made six or seven dozen cookies and they smelled delicious. She even put sprinkles on them.

 Then it was time for dog dinner, so we all went to the garage to eat. We had good dinner with fish stew and broccoli on it. After dinner we went back upstairs and Mom and Dad went to fold some laundry and talk about stuff. I only meant to look at the cookies, honest, but they smelled so good. I grabbed one and it tasted wonderful. There were a lot of them, so I didn't think Mom would miss a couple, so I started eating them and I couldn't stop. I knocked a few on the floor and Fudge and Sebastian gobbled them up. Then Mom walked in the room and yelled my name, NORMA JEAN!!!! I got down really fast but I took one last cookie with me, a snowman with sprinkles.

 Mom looked at her cookies and told Dad that I'd eaten about a dozen cookies with help from the boys. Dad said she shouldn't have left them on the table, but I don't think that helped my situation. She put all the cookies in a container with a top and told me over and over that I was a bad girl. Then she said that I should wear the naughty shirt. I can't, it's too little. 

Last night after the cookie incident, Mom said that Santa would probably skip our house this year because of me. I'm really sorry, Santa. I try to be good. Sometimes no matter how hard I try, it just doesn't work. Please don't skip us Santa, the rest of the pack has been pretty good and I'll try harder.

We love you Santa.
Norma Jean