Santa's Shorts

What follows is a collection of written work that I have produced over the years. Many of the Christmas themed writings were composed for my community’s newspaper holiday writing contest. The contest severely restricted the word count, so the stories in this booklet are bare bones. I hope to, one day, go back and develop some of them to be more than a short, short story. The last section of this collection has many of my earliest pieces, dealing with love, life and loss. Some speak to the love I bear for my helpmeet and eternal companion. Others were written to deal with the birth of a child not destined to tarry on Earth for very long. Other pieces bemoan the poverty of public school teachers and the challenge of raising children that come with labels: step, foster, adopted, biological, etc. I’ve even thrown in a couple of Halloween themed poems I recently wrote for a Utah State University sponsored writing contest.