Let me start by saying that this blog doesn’t include a heart warming anecdote about my wonderful child penning a letter to Santa asking him to forgo her presents in lieu of establishing world peace and providing adequate food and shelter to the millions of needy children in the world. While those are wonderful wishes, and ones I hope will some day make it on my child’s Santa wish list, my kid is 2-years-old and frankly she doesn’t even like Santa. In fact, she is deathly afraid of the guy, and when asked what she wants Santa to bring her for Christmas she replies: “No Santa, GRANDMA!” (My mom is her year-round Santa so I suppose she figures she has no need for a chubby guy with a face full of white hair.)
That said; my daughter has spent the better part of the week battling a horrible case of the stomach flu. (I’m only now making a dent in the pile of dirty sheets and clothing that took the brunt of her nausea.) In any event, I spent much of the last few days rubbing her back, rocking her, and explaining why she shouldn’t be scared of vomiting (yeah, try explaining that one to a 2-year-old). Towards the end of the week she started to feel a bit better—well enough to mold Play-Doh, draw with her markers… and write a letter to Santa.
I know how much she despises the guy, but I convinced her that it may be fun… and it was a good way to pass the time (see Sherry’s blog on boredom busters). So we went online and picked out a few goodies to add to her list: A Dora the Explorer Talking Cash Register, a toy vacuum just like mommy’s real one, a Sesame Street Tool Bench, a new dollhouse. By the end, she was really getting the hang of this letter to Santa “project.” (The jury’s still out on how many of those wishes will be fulfilled.)
Now we have the letter signed (okay, scribbled), sealed, stamped and ready to take to the post office on Monday. You do know that Santa relies on the holiday magic of the U.S. Postal Service to deliver his mail, right? According to postal workers, a bunch of
Santa’s helpers are busy in the North Pole (actually, North Pole, Alaska) processing the more than 120,000 pieces of mail addressed to Santa Claus. Our postmistress told me that even if your child simply addresses his or her letter to “Santa, ” he will still get them.
Apparently, so many letters have come in this year that the main post office in nearby Fairbanks has been called in to help process them. Letters with a return address usually get a reply from a local volunteer and a North Pole postmark. Other cities participating in the holiday postmark program include Bethlehem, Pennsylvania; Garland, Utah; Nazareth, Michigan; Antler, North Dakota; and Snowflake, Arizona.
Has your child written a letter to Santa yet?
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