Letters to Santa and A Simpler Time

For those of you who were hoping to hear how Mutt got his unfortunate name this week, you’ll have to wait one more week. It’s still coming. But this week, I thought I would ring in the Christmas season with a couple of my old letters to Santa.

It’s amazing what you can find in your parents’ attic when you really do some digging. I was up there over Thanksgiving, “helping” bring down the Christmas decorations in between sifting through boxes of old toys, when I came across two of my elementary school bookbags.

First, I would just like to say that bookbags have come a long way since I was a kid. I don’t think anyone even uses the term bookbag anymore. They’re all called backpacks, because they have enough specifically-shaped pockets and crevices that should your first grader ever get lost in the wilderness for a week, he’ll probably be fine as long as you filled all of those pockets and crevices with the items they were meant to be filled with.

Somehow my classmates and I managed to get through elementary school without a cylindrical mesh pocket for our water bottles. And by water bottle, I mean Hi-C juice box or Capri Sun, because no kid brought water to school as their drink of choice when I was little. We drank teeth-rotting juice during the week and then swished our fluoride as a class on Fridays right before we watched Reading Rainbow, and I would dare to say that the majority of us still have our original teeth, and for the ones who don’t, it likely wasn’t a direct result of not having a water bottle as a constant companion as a child.

Our bookbags didn’t have a Velcroed pocket specifically designed for our cell phones. And by cell phone, I mean the walkie-talkie that allowed us to communicate with the one friend we chose to give the other half to, assuming our classrooms were in close proximity to each other and our teachers didn’t catch us using them. And for those of you thinking cell phones didn’t exist when I was in elementary school, they did, but if the name of your school had Elementary or even Middle in its title, you didn’t have a cell phone. And I do realize the pocket would have been as tall as the bookbag itself and the phone would have probably weighed more than a textbook, but I’m just making a point.

We didn’t have four pockets in decreasing size jutting out the front of the bookbag, with pockets within those pockets, requiring us to remember exactly what was in which pocket. We had bookbags. Bags for books. If we needed something specific, we unzipped the one zipper on the whole bag, turned the bag upside down, dumped its contents on the ground, found what we were looking for, tossed everything back into the bag, and zipped it back up. It was a simpler time, and somehow we all survived.

But this is about finding letters to Santa in the attic. Oh, you know the one thing I didn’t find when rummaging through my old toys? A single Precious Moments figurine. For those of you who have read the ‘About the Author’ section of my website, you’ll understand why that’s significant.

Anyway, the letters. In the bookbags, I found a couple letters I wrote to Santa. I was kind of proud of myself after reading them, because while I clearly still wanted him to pay me a visit, I was honest with him about my shortcomings and realized I needed to use a bit of persuasive writing to secure myself a spot on his ‘nice’ list. So, without further ado, here are my childhood pleadings with Santa.

“Dear Santa, How are you. I am fine. I haven’t been wonderful this year but I’ve been okay. My Grandparents are coming to my house for Christmas. Please leave something in their stockings. Please leave my dog, Lady something for Christmas. She has been a good dog this year. I would like some games and books for Christmas. Have a good Christmas. Love, Jessica Holt.”

“Dear Santa Claus, I know you think I’ve been terrible this year. I know you don’t think I deserve any presents this year, either. I feel the same way. But, I’ve been thinking. You’ve already made my presents for this year. And you worked real hard on them. I know you can put sticks and stones in my stocking, and give my presents to some one else, but I’ve got a better idea. You can give me half of my presents this year. If I’m not good next year you don’t have to give me anything. You can pick the presents you give me. Sincerely, Jessica Holt.
PS. If you do this for me I’ll give all your reindeer an extra carrot.
PPS. If that’s not enough, the cookies are in the cabnet under the microwave. You can have as many as you want.”

And finally, to take it all the way back to the first grade:

“Santa Claus wears a red suit. Ihop he doesn’t mind that i am going to say that he has a big fat belly like a boul ful of Jelly! he Just gose to people that are good but how do you get to evry biddy that has ben good in just one night Santa? i dont no how you do that i gess your raindeer are just fast? he seys he will put roks in your stoking if you are not good he seys hohoho he likes us”

I wish for you a peaceful, restful, joyful, stress-free holiday season. Remember, it once was a simpler time, and somehow we all survived.