A letter to Santa
23/12/23 00:06
I am trying to remember if I have ever written a letter to Santa Claus. It seems like I must have done so at some point when I was a child. Our family was big on reading and writing. We practiced our writing by writing letters to relatives. When I was a child, I remember that we had deadlines for writing thank you letters to those who gave us gifts. But I can’t recall any specific instance where I wrote a letter to Santa Claus.
Part of it might have been the simple case that my parents weren’t into making a big show of Santa. There was one gift, unwrapped, under the tree for each child from Santa on Christmas morning. Santa also filled our Christmas stockings. In our house Santa was big on tradition. For example we not only always got an orange in our Christmas sock, we also got the story of when our father got an Orange in his Christmas sock when he was a boy. The main thing that kept stories of Santa alive in our house was not that our parents would make up elaborate stories, but that they urged us to participate win the magic of Christmas for the sake of the younger children. I remember asking my mother if Santa was real and hearing that while Santa might not be a person who lives at the North Pole, Santa certainly is part of the spirit of Christmas and generosity and that whatever I thought about Christmas, I should be careful not to ruin the magic for the younger boys. I was careful not to tell them what I thought about our parents at least helping Santa with the gifts we received and filling Christmas stockings, but rather to speak approvingly of Santa’s generosity.
I knew that just because I wanted something didn’t mean that I would get it as a Christmas gift. I could pour over the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues all I wanted. I could mark the items that I thought I wanted for Christmas, but there were plenty of things that I wanted that never made their way under our Christmas Tree. After all, there were lots of children in the world and Santa didn’t have an unlimited budget. When I was very young we were asked to help Santa with presents for the children of a friend from Rhodesia. This was before the nation became independent and was renamed Zimbabwe. Our parents purchased presents to send to the children and had us play gently with the presents and have our pictures taken with them so that the presents could be declared “used” for the purpose of avoiding very high import fees. We knew that we wouldn’t be keeping the toys and that they were destined for children in a far-away place.
The main reason I didn’t ever think it was a priority to write to Santa, however, was that I couldn’t imagine that Santa needed a letter from me to know what I wanted. After all, we sang the song: “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows if you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” Someone with that kind of a surveillance network probably didn’t need a letter from me to know about me. This was before the whole Elf on a Shelf phenomenon, but to the extent that I believed in Santa as a person, I also believed that Santa knew what we wanted for Christmas. Writing a letter seemed a bit like begging. In a way it seemed like Santa had already decided what to get us and that it might be more useful to write a letter to my Aunt Lois in Washington, DC and I for sure knew better than to write a letter to her asking for a specific gift.
So this might be a first for me for all I know.
Dear Santa,
I know that you are busy and that you are receiving letters from a lot of children at this time of the year, but if you want to know what I want for Christmas, I really don’t need presents. I have a lot of good things in my life and I am happy with the possessions I have. In fact, I have too many things and I need to figure out how to get rid of some of my possessions, so I don’t need more things. Thank you.
However, there are a lot of children in the world who won’t be able to write letters to you this year and I’d like to remind you that there is much they need. As you know the War in Ukraine has created the world’s largest human displacement crisis. There are a lot of children who have been forced to leave their homes and who don’t have an address from which to write a letter to you. I ask you to remember those children and help them and their parents find a place to call home.
And I’m sure that you know that over 20,000 Palestinians and Israelis have died in the Israel-Hamas War. Many of them have been children. For those who have so far survived the horrors of that war, I hope that you will bring them safety. I hope that they can one day live without fear being a constant companion.
In South Sudan, they are still recovering from a Civil War. This year 7.8 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity. A lot of them are children. If you can, please bring the gift of food to the the hungry children of South Sudan.
The entire population of Afghanistan has been pushed into poverty in the economic collapse of the nation. The children of Afghanistan don’t need wealth, just enough financial security to have food and shelter and maybe a bit of clothing as well, if you have room in your sleigh for those much-needed gifts.
And there are others, Santa. I’m sure you know about them as well.
And for myself? Perhaps I need just a bit of your spirit of generosity so that I will be motivated to give more to join you in helping the children of the world.
Thanks, Santa. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Ted
Part of it might have been the simple case that my parents weren’t into making a big show of Santa. There was one gift, unwrapped, under the tree for each child from Santa on Christmas morning. Santa also filled our Christmas stockings. In our house Santa was big on tradition. For example we not only always got an orange in our Christmas sock, we also got the story of when our father got an Orange in his Christmas sock when he was a boy. The main thing that kept stories of Santa alive in our house was not that our parents would make up elaborate stories, but that they urged us to participate win the magic of Christmas for the sake of the younger children. I remember asking my mother if Santa was real and hearing that while Santa might not be a person who lives at the North Pole, Santa certainly is part of the spirit of Christmas and generosity and that whatever I thought about Christmas, I should be careful not to ruin the magic for the younger boys. I was careful not to tell them what I thought about our parents at least helping Santa with the gifts we received and filling Christmas stockings, but rather to speak approvingly of Santa’s generosity.
I knew that just because I wanted something didn’t mean that I would get it as a Christmas gift. I could pour over the Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogues all I wanted. I could mark the items that I thought I wanted for Christmas, but there were plenty of things that I wanted that never made their way under our Christmas Tree. After all, there were lots of children in the world and Santa didn’t have an unlimited budget. When I was very young we were asked to help Santa with presents for the children of a friend from Rhodesia. This was before the nation became independent and was renamed Zimbabwe. Our parents purchased presents to send to the children and had us play gently with the presents and have our pictures taken with them so that the presents could be declared “used” for the purpose of avoiding very high import fees. We knew that we wouldn’t be keeping the toys and that they were destined for children in a far-away place.
The main reason I didn’t ever think it was a priority to write to Santa, however, was that I couldn’t imagine that Santa needed a letter from me to know what I wanted. After all, we sang the song: “He sees you when you’re sleeping. He knows if you’re awake. He knows if you’ve been bad or good, so be good for goodness sake.” Someone with that kind of a surveillance network probably didn’t need a letter from me to know about me. This was before the whole Elf on a Shelf phenomenon, but to the extent that I believed in Santa as a person, I also believed that Santa knew what we wanted for Christmas. Writing a letter seemed a bit like begging. In a way it seemed like Santa had already decided what to get us and that it might be more useful to write a letter to my Aunt Lois in Washington, DC and I for sure knew better than to write a letter to her asking for a specific gift.
So this might be a first for me for all I know.
Dear Santa,
I know that you are busy and that you are receiving letters from a lot of children at this time of the year, but if you want to know what I want for Christmas, I really don’t need presents. I have a lot of good things in my life and I am happy with the possessions I have. In fact, I have too many things and I need to figure out how to get rid of some of my possessions, so I don’t need more things. Thank you.
However, there are a lot of children in the world who won’t be able to write letters to you this year and I’d like to remind you that there is much they need. As you know the War in Ukraine has created the world’s largest human displacement crisis. There are a lot of children who have been forced to leave their homes and who don’t have an address from which to write a letter to you. I ask you to remember those children and help them and their parents find a place to call home.
And I’m sure that you know that over 20,000 Palestinians and Israelis have died in the Israel-Hamas War. Many of them have been children. For those who have so far survived the horrors of that war, I hope that you will bring them safety. I hope that they can one day live without fear being a constant companion.
In South Sudan, they are still recovering from a Civil War. This year 7.8 million people are facing crisis levels of food insecurity. A lot of them are children. If you can, please bring the gift of food to the the hungry children of South Sudan.
The entire population of Afghanistan has been pushed into poverty in the economic collapse of the nation. The children of Afghanistan don’t need wealth, just enough financial security to have food and shelter and maybe a bit of clothing as well, if you have room in your sleigh for those much-needed gifts.
And there are others, Santa. I’m sure you know about them as well.
And for myself? Perhaps I need just a bit of your spirit of generosity so that I will be motivated to give more to join you in helping the children of the world.
Thanks, Santa. Merry Christmas!
Love,
Ted
