The submission date has been extended until Wednesday 27th at 5pm pacific time. The winner will be announced the following day August 28th. You can download the contest rules to see the updates if you want.

Here is a snippet of a submission I got today, totally hilarious:

Dear Santa, I don't mean to sound ungrateful for the gifts that I've received over the years. The toy train set was great in 1976. My Atari 2600 was awesome in 1980. And who could forget the subscriptions to Playboy, Penthouse, Hustler, Oui, and Reader's Digest. Good times.

But lately man: the presents have kind of sucked. 2006, I got a tie. A freakin' tie? I'm a programmer. 2007 was the month's supply of Rogaine. I understand the motivation there, but couldn't you have tested that on a bald elf first? Doesn't work.

This year I'm asking for an early gift. Luis and Matt are offering the gift of free ColdBox training.

If you could lend a hand and make that happen, I'll overlook the debacle of 2006's gift (really? A book on ASP.NET?), and that one year I saw you kissing my mom.