December 2021 brings to Writing It Real adult letters to Santa from members who contributed their thoughts, memories, and requests to the icon of Christmas for children and the parents who helped them believe in a beneficent universal spirit. It is my pleasure to continue the month of these letters with work from Pat Detmer, Linda Caplan, Gary Munson, and Carol J. Wechsler Blatter.

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Dear Santa,

I thought you might like to know that my sister collects versions of you. They’re lovely, interesting, and arty, made with natural fabrics and twigs or wood, some tiny and some a yard tall. They’ve been crafted in other countries and made in the U.S., a few with sleds and packs filled with toys, others with no gifts evident. I always admire the many versions of you during the holidays when she puts you on display. You make an attractive icon.

I’m a nutcracker girl myself. Small and large, collector’s editions and oddities, gifts given to me because I’m hard to buy for, a four-footer that guards the front door, and a singular purchase I fell in love with at a charity auction, only realizing decades later that he was Black, the only Black nutcracker I’d seen before or since.

So why do I collect nutcrackers and not versions of you? Perhaps we collect who we are, or who we believe ourselves to be. My little sister, your collector, has always been a soft and loving girl, the prettiest and most angelic of the three of us. Sweet, just short of saccharine, believing the best of everyone, a tad naïve, always well-dressed and always smiling no matter what her mood, long gray hair flowing over her shoulders; while I am the eldest, the stoic, the one who paved the way, a tight-jawed woman who wears a tooth guard at night due to bruxism, the good soldier, always gazing to the horizon and filled with purpose and meaning, just like the nutcracker, who isn’t only for display but can actually be used as a tool to crack nuts.

And by the way, I also collect glass balls, and if you do exist and bring gifts to non-believers like me, I wouldn’t mind a few.

Hmmm. Glass balls and nutcrackers. I was once the only female sales manager in my profession in America, and peers called my husband, sight unseen, “The bravest man in the universe.” But don’t read too much into that, Santa. I was not naughty this year and tried to be as nice as someone built like me can be. So glass balls, please. And an Asian nutcracker while you’re at it. I think it would be an apt addition, given the times.

Thanks in advance!

Pat Detmer

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HEY, SANTA!!

By Linda Caplan

To begin with, Hanukkah is my holiday. Rather. It’s my family’s holiday and has been for all of my 70+ years. We never went overboard like your Christmas people do. My parents had a lovely Menorah which we lit faithfully for 8 nights, said the traditional Hanukkah prayer, and my two sisters and I got “modest” presents each night. We learned the story of Hanukkah in Sunday School at the synagogue we belonged to, so the meaning behind it, the story of the last of the Israelites burning oil, was known to us all.

Even though we lived in an overwhelmingly Jewish community, we knew the rest of the world celebrated Christmas with fanfare that, even growing up, seemed extreme and over the top.

Hanukkah was mostly an overlooked minor holiday to the rest of the Gentile world. It may have been mentioned on the TV news as a passing note, but was never highlighted like the parades, songs, parties, decorations, TV specials, and commercial retail onslaught, we couldn’t help be inundated with and influenced by. So, in order to give us girls a “flavor” of Christmas, my parents bought and wrapped additional presents which we anxiously opened on Christmas morning. Just to be “inclusive” (not a buzzword in those days).

Over the years my sisters and I married and started having our own families. Our cousins did the same, and soon we were having our own Hanukkah celebrations. At some point, in the mid-’80s, as our families expanded, we made the decision to have an extended family Hanukkah party at our parent’s house. By the early ’90s, there were more than 15 children in the new generation. It seemed like an explosion of babies and kids from ages 1 to 12. There even turned out to be a couple of blended families, created through divorce, and more children were added to the tally.

My parents had a very large home, an old-style English Tudor house that could easily accommodate a large crowd. We planned a gift exchange and a pot luck dinner with all the traditional Hanukkah dishes: potato latkas with sour cream and applesauce, roasted chicken, slow-cooked brisket, challah bread, my mom’s delicious chopped liver, sweet noodle kugels, an assortment of vegetables, and, of course, homemade Star of David sugar cookies and a variety of baked desserts. And, not to forget, the tables were strewn with gold foil-covered chocolate “coins,” known as Hanukkah gelt, i.e, money.

Everyone looked forward to getting together for the yearly gathering. We played “dreidel games” with more gelt as prizes and sang whatever Hanukkah songs we knew. At sundown, we all gathered around the large bar in the family room and lit the Menorah candles, and recited the Hebrew prayer in a not-so-perfect unison.

With dinner over, the tension was palpable. Our stomachs were bursting from all the delicious food, but the best was yet to come.

On cue, everyone raced into the living room and the adults started handing out the presents, each labeled with one child’s name. My parents gave each child their own present along with the ones in the exchange. The sound of shiny paper ripping was everywhere, as were the screams of the kids anxiously opening up their gifts. Piles of ribbon and paper were in every corner as the finale continued.

As the years went on, our kids got married and started having babies of their own. Four generations, quite an accomplishment! But my parents were getting older, and the preparation of a huge family celebration became an undertaking that was too much for them. So, a few years ago, one of my sister’s sons and his wife took on the assignment of keeping the tradition. We all enjoyed the change of venue, and the replication of the meal, songs, Menorah lighting, and riotous opening of presents was a success.

Sadly, my father passed away in 2018 at the age of 97. My mom, four years younger, still loved the holiday and cherished the glowing faces of children and the excitement of us all getting together. She was, in her own right, a very accomplished woman, who earned her reputation as an artist, collector, and cultural benefactor. But, regardless of the accolades she was bestowed, her greatest pride and joy was her family. When the pandemic hit in 2020, the Hanukkah party was canceled. In 2021, as things opened up, we all hoped for a reunion. Then in April, my mom, at 95 took ill, and within two weeks, she passed away. It was a heart-wrenching loss for everyone, as she was the matriarch, the muse, the glue that kept our beautiful family together. She was beloved.

This year, on December 5, we are once again, for the last time, celebrating Hanukkah at my parent’s home, where they lived for more than 50 years. Before the house goes on the market, and before all the tables, lamps, chairs, linens, dishes, photos, sofas, rugs, paintings, books, sculptures, knick-knacks, accessories, and treasures they collected disappear, we will remember their lives and our amazing family. And, as a fitting end of an era, we are asking everyone, including all the grandchildren and their great-grandchildren, to take a memento, a remembrance, whatever they chose, to honor their legacy and lives well lived.

At Easter, Santa, I’ll tell you how we celebrate Passover.

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Dear Santa,

It seems hard to believe but it’s been over sixty years since I wrote to you.  It’s not that I’ve forgotten you.  Somehow life just seems to get in the way. There was college, then marriage and the raising of a family, and sixty years are past. I just thought it was about time to write and thank you for all those Christmases long ago. You might remember a small white frame house at the end of a dirt road. Around it were pastures and behind a forested hill rose. Twenty-three Christmases were spent in that house. I remember best the ones in my younger years; especially one in particular.

I must have been around ten at the time.  There was only one thing I wanted that Christmas, the complete eight-volume set of Tom Corbett Space Cadet. You must have thought you’d be particularly busy that year 1961 because I remember a week or two before Christmas a package appeared under the tree. As soon as I picked it up, I knew my wish had come true. The heft of the package and the feel told me it contained the books I wanted. I would sit sometimes and hold it.  I remember my finger “accidentally” poked a hole in the paper. I glimpsed a bit of colored spine.  Rather than satisfy me, the peek only made it that much harder to wait for Christmas morning.

I don’t know if it helps you to remember, but that year I have always called the Cedar Tree Christmas. Each year my dad would go up the hill and bring back our Christmas tree. Usually, they were pines but that year it was a cedar about five feet tall. None of our trees were the normal shapely Norman Rockwell trees. My dad could not bring himself to cut down the really nice trees so we always had the second or third best. The little cedar was the runt of the trees we had.

We got out the cardboard box which held our assortment of decorations and picked among the broken ones for our favorite. The first ornament we put on the tree caused the branch to droop down, really droop down. Well, we put as many on as the tree would support and wrapped it in tin foil garland, and draped it in tinsel. That tree reminds me that my dad was right to not take the prettiest one. That cedar, which would have gone unnoticed in the forest became the center of our Christmas. I hope you didn’t laugh too much when you saw it.

Santa, I wanted to write and tell you what that Christmas meant to me. The gifts you brought on Christmases are long gone, all but one. For over sixty years that set of Tom Corbett Space Cadet has held a special place on my bookshelf. The books have traveled from Alabama to Florida, to New Orleans, to upstate New York, and back to Florida. One day I will pass them on to my son.

Thank you, Santa for that small package which continues to bring good memories. I’d better close for now as I know you have many other letters to read. God keep you safe on your trip this year. Oh, just to let you know, we will have a new granddaughter this Christmas. Her name is Maggie so you can be looking for a letter from her in the next few years. And that reminds me, there is one thing I want to ask you for this year. Promise me that you will give her a special Christmas while she is a child, one she will remember when she is sixty.

Sincerely,

Gary J. Munson

P.S. I put my full name because I know you’ve heard and will hear from thousands more Gary’s.

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After Hearing Your PSA Announcement

By Carol J. Wechsler Blatter

 

Public Service Announcement (PSA):

There is only one real Santa. That’s me. No look-a-likes. No phonies. None of those stand-in store Santas who are paid to take their places on their fake golden decorated thrones, have children sitting on their laps one by one, imitating my Ho-Ho-Ho message and pretending to enjoy kisses and hugs from excited enthralled endearing children. No, they are not me. They can never be me. I AM THE ONLY ME, THE ONLY REAL, TRUE, ORIGINALLY ORDAINED BY BIRTH SANTA. Other Santas promote commerce. I do not. Savvy store owners have fake Santas in order to increase revenue from moms and dads who are likely to make impulsive purchases after their children’s visits with them. 

I’ve considered patenting me. The only real Santas will be from my family, me, my son, my grandson, and his son and his grandson. The lines of true honorable honest genuine Santas are passed down only through my male bloodline. This is indisputable.

Dear Santa:

I just heard your announcement. I am a 79-year-old woman who lives in Tucson AZ. I have known you, or maybe it was your grandfather Santa or your father Santa I remember as a child. I was amazed at how you flew through the sky with your reindeer (thankfully Rudolph, the reindeer, lit your way) late at night. I wonder how you still maneuver yourself in and out of so many chimneys on Christmas eve delivering loads of toys stuffed into those large overloaded canvas bags for good boys and girls. Maybe you hadn’t thought about it. These deliveries are hard on your heart. On a frigid Christmas eve night, I can imagine you huffing and puffing and having difficulty catching your breath. You don’t want to admit that it is getting harder each year to make these deliveries. Like so many of us, you also deny your age and ignore your health.

I worry about all the extra sugar you eat at Christmas time. You know. Those heavily caloried yummies, chocolate chip Toll House cookies Mrs. Claus bakes, those candy bars you eat filled with chocolate, nougat, and peanuts, those yummy pink striped candy canes, and for warmth after a very cold night on the job you enjoy many cups of sweet bubbly hot chocolate topped with swirls of whipped cream. And this list doesn’t include the sweet treats you sneak in the middle of the night as Mrs. Claus sleeps. Like enjoying scoops of ice cream in different flavors. Sometimes you make a sundae with one or two scoops of vanilla ice cream topped with chocolate syrup and honey-sweetened walnuts. At Christmas time it is hard to be a weight watcher.

My cousin, Carolyn, broke the news to me that your grandfather Santa wasn’t real. How could she have said such an awful thing and made me cry? That was terrible, she was mean. As we grew up, she apologized. But the hurt remained. I think every child should believe in Santa. Why remove the fantasy and spoil some of the magic of Christmas for children? But— I don’t believe that being good should be attached to rewards. I do understand that sometimes children need motivators to be respectful and well-behaved. But not exclusively.

There is something else I need to tell you. I am Jewish. My daughter is Jewish. My granddaughter is Jewish. We don’t celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Chanukah, the festival of lights. People often confuse these two holidays although they have nothing in common except for coming in the winter season usually in December. On very rare occasions Christmas day and one of the eight days of Chanukah occur on the same day. We celebrate this holiday in rededicating the second Temple after it was destroyed by our enemies and we retained the right to freely practice our religion.

We light the menorah on Chanukah.

When I was a child my parents and grandparents gave us Chanukah gelt (money), pennies, dimes, quarters, and as I got older, I was even gifted with a few dollar bills. Now many Jewish children get presents every night of the eight nights of Chanukah. I never did. Now we give one gift to our daughter and granddaughter at the start of the entire holiday.

And we still play the dreidel game at Chanukah with our granddaughter just as we did with our daughter. Here’s a picture of two decorated dreidels. Santa, you may enjoy playing the dreidel game with Mrs. Santa a few days after you return from your long, overworked night delivering presents. If you call me, I will tell you how to play it. Do you have a cell phone? For safety, I hope you carry it with you on your deliveries.

Santa, I’ve been thinking about many ways to make your job easier using modern technology. You can buy a GPS unit and attach it your sled or onto your belt so it will give you an immediate indication of your location in the sky. You won’t have to guess where you are, you’ll know where you are. Santa, if you don’t have a computer, I suggest that you purchase one and pay for internet usage. You will also need email. Months before your yearly journey you can go to city hall where all the resident records are. Then you can enter the names of all the parents and children who live in all the villages into the computer and you won’t miss anyone. Imagine missing boys and girls who have waited up for you for hours whom you unintentionally bypassed? How hurtful is that? A computerized file will avoid such a disaster.

Ahead of your visits, you can send emails to all the parents to tell them that you will be coming at a certain time and to make sure that their chimneys are clean so that you won’t be covered in soot. It’s embarrassing to have you’re very tailored traditionally impeccably fitted Santa suit of red velvet edged in white fur coated in coal-colored black. Worse yet is that your white beard and your big round smiling face and pudgy cheeks would be “soot-ified,” which may scare the children. I can imagine that some of the little ones seeing you in soot will feel scared and cry. Tearful, one little boy might say, that’s not Santa. Santa doesn’t have black sprinkles on his face. I want the real Santa.

Santa, are you thinking about retiring and giving your Santa suit (it may need to be altered) to your son to carry on the good work you have done? I hope so. You deserve a rest.