Maybe this is the year we should do without Santa Claus.

It should at least be a year we skip the awful and amateurish "The Year Without a Santa Claus," a deadly dull and messy made-for-TV movie that puts John Goodman in a cheap fake beard to play a grouchy Kris Kringle.

It airs Monday at 8 p.m. on KSL Channel 5. This is what we get while "Heroes" is on hiatus?!

"The Year Without a Santa Claus" is a remake of the classic Rankin/Bass stop-motion-animated TV special, only with a tiny fraction of the heart and comedy of the original.

You see, Santa's peeved because the spirit of Christmas has been diminishing with every bad behavior and snide, rude remark made in the world.

Santa (played with an unloving air by Goodman) decides he wants to take a year off and not be the supplier of toys for children around the world.

That's a troublesome thought for two of his elves, Jingle and Jangle (Eddie Griffin and Ethan Suplee, respectively), who decide to go down to the real world to find a boy who can breathe the Christmas spirit back into Santa.

For the sake of brevity, here's my letter to Santa explaining what could make this movie better:

Dear Santa:

All I want for Christmas is a movie that is funny.

One with decent special effects that don't look like they were produced by some geeky 15-year-old and his Macintosh computer.

One with sets that weren't drawn with crayons by Mrs. Bittle's first-grade class.

One with comic actors other than Eddie Griffin or Chris Kattan - in other words, actors who are funny.

One without Delta Burke as Mrs. Claus made up to look like a ghost with pale makeup whiter than snow.

One that doesn't dump its heart out all over the set in the last scene to remind us the Christmas spirit really is alive. Let's face it, with movies like this, the Christmas spirit is dead.

Finally, what I really want for Christmas is a new movie that won't make me feel like a sick, pessimistic Scrooge who gains a distaste for holiday TV specials. After all, this is supposed to be the season of good cheer.