My confession? I still check Facebook to see news about books even though I swore to family that I would stay off of it during December.

Just after graduating from college (1988?), I was hired by the Sandburg Mall in Galesburg, Illinois to play Santa. I really needed the money and I also convinced myself that this was a great way to put my BA in Acting to good use. I was supposed to work through December 24 (I was the only "Santa" still available after 12/22). I stopped showing up on December 23rd. I never contacted anyone, didn't call in - I just didn't go to work. I assume that for the last two days before Christmas there were many, many children in Galesburg that didn't get to tell Santa what they wanted for Christmas. After that, I was never able to shop at the mall without feeling guilty. Then in (I think) 2013, I made up a story about playing Santa at the Sandburg Mall in order to win a free copy of a book.

The one thing that I remember around the holidays, I was about 12 years old, is a lost collie came up to our house & since it was cold with snow on the ground; my brother & I wanted a dog so we talked our parents into letting her into our house. They said after the holidays, we would have to find her owners so we agreed. We were so excited to have her and we named her Lisa. She was such a beautiful dog and so friendly. We had her for a couple of days and had so much fun with Lisa. Well, little did anyone know, I already knew where her owners lived and her real name (she had a little barrel hanging off her collar with her personal information-her name was Tonka & lived about 2 miles from us) but I didn't tell anyone!! And until now, no one knew this. Are you reading this Bob? After Christmas, my parents called the Humane Society and her owners were looking for her & happy she was safe & sound. So that is my naughty holiday story :)

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Hopefully, this isn't too gross to qualify...Lit the Chanukah candles from right to left.

If you don't mind sending one overseas, I'm in. You want to be international.

When I was 12, I created a fake elf license in September (complete with photo and well placed glitter). Sure it wasn't good enough to get me into any bars, but it was good enough to enslave my four year old sister for the three months preceding Christmas...for the next two years.

The A&P down the road from the house I grew up in had plastic bins of candy with a small metal bank. It cost $.05 per piece of candy and was basically run on the honor system. Well, there is no honor amongst thieves and from age 6 or 7 until I was in high school, I would regularly deposit a single penny and take several pieces of delicious candy. I would even as my Mom or Dad for a quarter, keep it, use the penny, and get my sugar fix. Pretty good racket for a suburban stick up kid, cash & candy. :)

Showed my sister what a snow storm looked like. (I was 4 she was 2) I poured baby powder all over our bedroom...EVERYWHERE. Then I realized that it wasn't sticking to anything so I spread vaseline on EVERYTHING and did it again. It stuck that time.

I had a friend who was deathly afraid of clowns and specifically the movie, IT. So I made a recording of the lines, "We all floating down here." Then proceeded to fill her room with balloons while she slept, placed one of the kid's punching bags that bounces back immediately after you hit it, and then set the audio file to play in the morning on repeat. The file went off, she woke up, screamed, punched the clown in the face only so it would return, and screamed more as she struggled to fight her way out of a room full of helium balloons. She didn't really talk to me for a few months after that one. -JP-

I usually toed the line around Christmas. I wasn't worried too much about Santa, it was my old man I had to look out for. When he had a little to much Early Times, the holiday spirit got the hell out of house in a hurry. When I was nine, there was a new football under the tree. Intending to punt it in the direction of my bedroom, I instead shanked it off the side of my foot. The ball took out part of the upper portion of the tree as well as a living room window. My father was assessed no penalty for roughing the kicker.

Delaware sucks. I was on the Delaware Turnpike in Delaware (in an attempt to connect to the Jersey Turnpike in New York), in the middle of a late-night snowstorm sometime in mid-January about 12 years ago. It was a desolate stretch of black-ice that I remember well because Delaware actually charged a toll to get into their shitty state via the Turnpike. I remember looking in vain for food, and having to stop for a hot Cinnabon that weakly functioned as my only meal of the day. I made the mistake of leaving before using the bathroom, thinking that I could make it out of Delaware without having to expose my genitals. A few miles down the road I knew I faced an impossible task. I pulled into a dimly lit truck stop and ran around the side to use the bathroom. The steel bathroom door silently opened into a poured concrete tomb of a men's room. The entire bathroom, the stall walls, urinals, and sinks, were made of poured concrete. It gave the room a clumsy sculpted feel, as there were no hard edges on any surface, just uncountable layers of flaking paint and the smell of cold earthy rot. The only light source was from a single window set into the far wall, a flickering orange sodium vapor lamp that leaked through its smeared and cracked glass. The room was deathly quiet and I was in dire need, so I hobbled up to the baroque concrete urinal and began to piss away onto a small piece of Delaware. The dull howl of the wind drowned out most sounds and I could barely hear my urine splash against the concrete. That's probably why I had little warning of what would happen next. I was nearly done with my business, when I felt a hand rest on my shoulder. I paused, ever so briefly, in revulsion, shock, and horror. It's somewhat like coming downstairs on Christmas Eve as a child trying to catch Santa Claus. Only instead of a kindly old elf, you find your parents screwing under the Christmas tree, with the family dog. My left elbow flew backward and connected with a soft crunch. I ran out of the Delaware Gulag and into the storm as fast as I could. I hit the snow-covered Turnpike as fast as my 4WD truck would let me. I wasn't followed. To this day that was the last time I've ever used a urinal anywhere. Give me a stall with a lock or I'll be a big boy and hold it. To end that little adventure, Delaware charged me another toll to leave their damn state. That one was worth it.

I ate one of Santa's cookies... and it was delicious.