Dear Santa,

Hey there Santa, how you doin? I know it’s been awhile. In fact, I think it’s been like, forever, since I sat down to write you an actual letter. But you know, Christmas makes me a little nostalgic and I thought that maybe I should touch base with you. I really would prefer to be able to text you, but since you have your own postal code and everything, I assume that snail mail is your preferred method of correspondence.

I suppose the real reason it’s been so long is well, because I’m not even sure you are, you know, alive. Like alive enough to receive mail. Oh sure, I know that Saint Nicholas or Kris Kringle or Sinterklaas or whatever you used to be called was a real person way back in the day. But as for whether you are actually bunkered down somewhere in the North Pole making lists and bossing elves around, I’m just not so sure about that.

I don’t know exactly when it was that I decided to put such childishness behind me. Maybe it was when it dawned on me that we didn’t have a fireplace. Maybe it was because all my presents were wrapped and under the tree well before Christmas. Maybe it was that time when I was sleeping on the couch in full view of my stocking hung with care on the wall unit and I woke up early enough to see that my stocking was Still Flat. So I stayed in bed (well, in couch, actually) and pretended to sleep until mom came along and filled it up with grapes or something. It was pretty anticlimactic. But it was also pretty obvious that you weren’t the responsible stocking filler that rumor had said you were.

Mom never really did put much stock in perpetuating the idea of you flying around on Christmas Eve delivering packages faster than Amazon Prime. I think it was pretty much my idea to hang up a stocking. Did my six siblings preceding me ever do it? Maybe you would know, but I have no idea. As the baby of the family, all I knew was, much like Sally in A Charlie Brown Christmas, all I wanted was what I had coming to me and hanging up a stocking was like an insurance policy. And so Mom sewed me a stocking at my request- she was so good at that – and thus unintentionally set it up for me to expect someone to fill it. Maybe you.

I wasn’t expecting grapes.

To be fair to Mom, I think this was probably when I was around twelve and maybe she thought I was just too old for stockings but dang it, I had hung it up anyway. I could hear her in the kitchen, making cooking noises that Morning of the Flat Stocking. Because it was, after all, Turkey Eating Day and she had a lot to do before we went to church that morning. I didn’t understand that then, but I sure do now.

Maybe that was why I laughed at my older cousin when he adamantly insisted that Yes, Bonnie, There Is A Santa Claus and then presented to me the Encyclopedia flipped open to the page about you, Saint Nicholas, complete with a photograph and everything. I was pretty sure that there weren’t cameras in the fourth century so I just quietly concluded to myself that both the Encyclopedia and my aunt and uncle were doing a good job of lying to my cousins. Or to put it in a nicer way, perpetuating the story.

When I had kids of my own, it wasn’t long before we put the kibosh on believing that you were the one bringing them presents – we didn’t want to get them all hung up on you when it was Jesus’ birthday that we were celebrating. But ironically, that didn’t stop us from showering our kids with gifts, thus emulating your rumored generosity. And we made those presents magically appear on Christmas morning – the magic being that Rick was able to make me stay awake long enough so that we could escape them detecting us putting their gifts under the tree. AND we filled their stockings.

I still fill their stockings. Oh yeah, you probably know this, but Gil, Tim and Simon are 26, 24 and 22 now. And Tim is married! And I fill a stocking for Sharlie, too – that’s Tim’s wife. But stockings are important to me – probably even more than they are to them. If you are real, you must know that. And not just because my Mom wasn’t really into them, but because to me it’s part of the waiting, the expectation, the magic, the hope fulfilled that Christmas is so famous for. That you’re so famous for.

It was nice that you waved to us in the mall last weekend. (If that really was you.) We saw how happy you made all those little kids. And their parents. I think a lot of the times the parents were more excited to introduce their kids to you than the kids were to meet you. You do, after all, dress kinda weird, and have an entourage. Sort of like Lady Gaga.

It’s less than a week now till Christmas, so I know you must be busy. Make sure you load up on Cold FX and stay healthy for the big night coming up. I’m sure it’ll be a doozy, as usual. You know, like it will be for the rest of us – a little happy, a little sad, a little busy, a little lonely. It must be kind of a long night hanging out with all those reindeer and flying all over the world. Thanks for staying faithful to the job or the story or whatever. You are an inspiration for the rest of us.

Have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

Love, Bonnie