You can wish for whatever you want this Christmas, but I’m going to wish for something I know I’ll get. Older.

Santa hasn’t let me down yet.

I saw a childhood photo of myself, sitting by the Christmas tree in a pair of pajamas. The kind with the seat-flap that unbuttons. Good God, I looked like a baby. Twenty-five-year-olds ought not wear those kinds of pajamas.

The truth is, you couldn’t pay me enough to go backward and grow up all over again. I don’t care how good my skin looked, I hate algebra.

One of my childhood friends has developed a head of gray hair. I saw my buddy after twenty years. It’s funny how silver hair-color can change someone altogether. He’s not the same man.

That rambunctious, dark-haired joker, who once landed me in jail for exactly one night; who slept like a log while I hummed the “Folsom Prison Blues,” has vanished. He’s now a financial advisor who drinks the kind of wine I can’t pronounce. Boo-shay something or other. Whenever he tells a lie, I yell, “Aw, that’s total boo-shay!” His kids love it when I do that.

The truth is, I believe age makes people better. I think it helps cure the deadly affliction of youth, which folks spend a lot of money to sustain.

Therefore, I hope Santa makes my crow’s feet a little deeper this year, maybe a little more arthritis would be nice. I hope he keeps altering the way I pile on body fat. I enjoy watching numbers on the scale climb for no discernible reason. Maybe Santa can bring me a good fiber supplement and some Velcro shoes this year, too. But for Christ sake, please hurry, Santa.

I’m not getting any younger.