Dear Santa:

Rather than brag about what I have already purchased my wife for Christmas(because she peruses this to make sure I am not doing her wrong), I figured I would post my Christmas list one here.  I mean, you never know when Santa might swing on by. 

First off, there a couple of books on my list. 

1. Monster Hunter Vendetta, the sequel to Larry Correia's Monster Hunters International.  Wife and I both greatly enjoyed the first book...'A rollicking thrill ride...'  Good book.  An exercise in restraint since I have seen this book in stores twice, but followed the rules, and instead of buying it put it on my Christmas List.

2. Any of the 1635 Books from Eric Flints 1632 Ring of Fire series.  A very elaborate alternate history story, in which a wayward cosmic string moves a modern day town in West Virginia gets blasted back to northern Germany in the middle of the 30 Years War.  The series starts with the books 1632 and 1633, then in 1634 the story splits between an Northern Europe, Western Europe and Southern Europe storylines, meaning there are like 3 or 4 books for these years. 

As for merchandise, I can use a rechargeable Spotlight style flashlight...at least 1 million candlepower...we used to have one but it has been misplaced. 

Another functional replacement present would be a remote reading digital meat thermometer.   I have been without a meat thermometer for the better part of a year, and I dread that I am going to kill my family or guests every time I attempt to roast something in the oven.   Worse than killing someone would be the embarrassment of survey something overcooked to the point of dryness.  BAD.  I always picture the turkey scene in National Lampoons Christmas Vacation, when they cut the turkey and it a dry empty husk.

Something I have been longing for the last few years is a fairly decent set of COMPACT binoculars.  For hunting, I own a not very decent full-size 10 X 50 Bino's but due to their size and cumbersomeness, they live in my back-pack.  This leads to me to be the very bad type of hunter who uses his rifle-scope to do looking and examining, which means occasionally, I violate every rule in the book and end up looking at another hunter through my scope.  I am not the only one who does this...but I can attest, when I notice someone is looking at me through THEIR scope, it gives me the hebbie-jeebies.  I feel a set of compact field glasses, in the Bushnell or Nikon category would please me.  And for Gosh Sake Santa, don't feel the need to spend the extra money for a set with a range finder or digital camera built in.

Finally, as Santa knows by know, if all else fails, I am always easy to please with some kind of knife or flashlight...you give me a new Kershaw Open Assist knife, and I can play with that thing for HOURS.