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 start the month off with these three letters from David Horowitz, Judith Sornberger, and Virginia Amis.

David Horowitz

Dear Santa Claus:

As a religious dissenter whose primary values are consideration and vitality, and who practices his own distinctive rituals, let me thank you for not preaching at me about how I should believe in you. What a welcome change from all the righteous huffing and puffing of demagogues! You simply promote generosity, and for this gift I am in your debt!

Now, Santa. I have only two requests. Please help my fellow world citizens disdain stereotypes, a profound source of their mutual hatreds. Positive and negative stereotypes are of all kinds of people: black, white, brown, yellow, red, rich, poor, young, old, female, male, liberal, and conservative, among others. Help people cultivate empathy and honor each other’s complexity. And help them admit what embarrasses them and not project their hatreds onto others. That would make me so happy this holiday season!

And second: I speak to the ghost of Nicholas of Myra, the great third-and-fourth-century Turkish saint whose generosity helped inspire the Santa Claus legend. I have a gift for you, Nicholas! If you can, check out Saint Nicholas of Myra Saves Three Innocents from Death, a great painting completed in 1888 by the Russian painter Ilya Repin. This masterpiece does honor to your admirable legacy. I don’t have to explain it. It will speak to you.

I’ll leave it at that, Santa. Enjoy the holidays you helped inspire—and which is appreciated by believers, pagans, and dissenters who celebrate winter’s emergence by making others’ lives a little warmer.

David D. Horowitz
Seattle, Washington

***

Judith Sornberger

Letter to Santa at Age 69

Dear benefactor of a childhood
lit by December’s multi-colored bulbs
of awe and dazzle, I had no idea
how lucky I was to imagine you
and your elves sawing and hammering
and sewing away on the toys
I meditated over in the glossy
Sears catalog, turning pages thin
and satiny as in my children’s Bible—
the one with Jesus on the cover
holding a lap full of children.

How lucky to climb on the lap
I could almost believe was yours,
To say yes, I’ve been good, and could
you please bring my first high-heel doll?
To be almost sure she’d arrive
in a few snow-swaddled weeks—
weeks that passed like centuries—
under the tinsel-hung wonder of our tree.
I had no idea there were children
in my city who’d wake up to nothing
they’d hoped for, to mothers saying
Santa wasn’t real or that you must have
flown right over their part of town.

At 21—with a child’s gullible soul
and dazzled by a wealth of gifts
for no reason—I married the wrong man.
The year my sons lost their father’s lap,
I became one of those moms whose
hearts plummeted when hearing
their kids wishing for toys on TV.
But you—who I’d long ago packed
away with my Barbie, stuffed poodle,
and Candyland—came through.
No other way to explain the extra
two hundred bucks showing up
in my checking account that December.

I waited till almost too late to order
my son’s walkie-talkie helmets,
a teepee, and a cardboard playhouse,
checking my balance each morning,
hoping my windfall hadn’t vanished.
Watching them waking up to such largesse
was better than all my childhood
Christmas mornings put together.

Since gratitude must be directed somewhere,
I thank you, though I know some kids
aren’t as lucky as mine, which dims
memory’s sparkle, but where to send
a complaint? I’m old enough to know
you’re not to blame. Nor is Baby Jesus
or those other little ones’ sad mothers.

***

Virginia Amis

Dear Santa,

If I were eight, I’d be able to give you a list of wants.  But, I’m a few decades past eight and, after reflecting, I believe it is time to give you something:  Gratitude.

Thank you for the new friendship you brought this past year.  I thought I was going to be lonely, but you had different plans.  My new friend and I walk and talk and share and laugh.  I did not see that coming.  Thank you, also, for old friends whose love and support have kept me upright when I would have rather stayed in bed and pulled the covers over my head.  I hope I can be to them what they are to me.  Always, let me grasp their hands when they reach out for help.

Thank you for my husband.  He vacuums, sometimes without grumbling.  He cooks a mean pork chop and grills my favorite hamburgers to perfection.  He’s busy helping his aging parents now and watching him has given me renewed respect for his patience and love.  Everyday there’s a phone call asking what day it is or what time he will be coming by to see them.  Sometimes there are three calls, all about the same thing.  I’ve never heard a sharp tone in his voice, even if the call interrupts our dinner.  Maybe this is practice for when we age and need each other’s understanding if our shoes don’t match and we wear our underwear on the outside of our pants.

Thank you for my writing friends.  They reach out to each other and extend long-distance hugs at just the right time.  I can’t think of a need one of them would hesitate to fill.  They are gems.

Thank you for my teachers.  Because of them, I can write this letter to you.  They suffered my rough drafts and encouraged new paths.  Their creativity sparked mine and wonders unfolded.  How can “thank you” be enough?

Thank you for my parents.  The older I grow, the more I understand what they endured so I could grow.

I hope you and the Mrs. have a lovely Christmas.  Maybe more grateful children will say thank you this year.  I’m guessing you would like that gift most of all.

Your friend,

Virginia Amis

***

If these memories, requests and feelings compel you to write your own letter to Santa, please do and send it to me via email by clicking this link. I am happy to add more of these letters to our postings for the month of December.