DECEMBER 13: Christmas Letters
“Still the letters keep coming,” chuckled Santa Claus. “And every year it seems to me as though I received a larger mail than I ever had before.
“But it can never be too large for Santa Claus.
“And the precious dears! What memories they have. They know just what they want! They don’t forget!
“They think old Santa remembers too when they have told him one thing and then just add a little postscript or another letter without explaining to him just what their last letter was about.
“They think he can remember and keep them all straight, even though he may get several letters from the same child in many, many cases.
“They think he can remember their names from year to year, and they’re right. Yes, the blessed little dears are right.” And Santa Claus chuckled to himself as he stroked his beard and by the burning coals of the great stove in his workshop he read the letters which had just come.
“Dear Santa Claus,” was the beginning of every one, or at least almost every one, though some of them began, “Dear, dear Santa Claus,” and “You precious old Santa Claus,” and a number of other nice beginnings like that, which made Santa Claus very happy.
But every letter made him happy, for every letter was just a little different and he liked all the children to be different and not to be just alike.
“I hope you remember me,” one read, “for I wrote to you last year and the year before. The year before that I was too youngto write, but my brudder wrote for me? Do you remember my brudder’s letter that he wrote that year? He said that he guessed the next year I could write you a letter, for I could then write my name.
“And my brudder was right and the next year I did write you a letter.”
Some of the spelling wasn’t just like this, but this is the way it sounded as Santa Claus read it aloud. He was all by himself, except that his collie dog, Boy of the North, was sitting by him on the floor, but he read it aloud, for he loved to hear the sound of the words the children had written and picture them as they looked while writing.
And he didn’t care about the spelling.
“Of course,” he said to himself, “they must go to school and learn how to spell, for they would feel dreadfully when they grew up if they didn’t know more than they do now!
“But when they’re writing to Santa Claus it doesn’t make so much difference. They can take a little holiday then. And even when they make a blot and then write down by it that it is a kiss I know that they do mean to send a kiss to me, even if the blot itself was accidental!
“Well, I must go on with this letter.”
He went on with the letter and this was what he read:
“My brudder won a gold medal in school the other day. He is getting to be so smart, dear Santa, and I know you’ll be pleased to hear it. You sent me a picture once Santa when I was very little of a boy who was very cold on his way to school with his coat all wrapped up tight around him.
“In school he won the gold medal. It was the day they gave the prizes, and coming home from school the picture showed the boy with his coat open wide, and the gold medal pinned on, and he didn’t feel the cold the least bit!
“Do you ’member, Santa Claus? Brudder was like that the other day.”
Yes, he remembered that picture and how pleased he was to think the boy, a boy he had always liked so much, had won a gold medal.
And on he read the letters. Some were letters just full of news of what they all were doing in the different homes, of what they were going to do, and in some they wrote of the new sisters or brothers who had come since Santa Claus had last been written to.
Of course they told him what presents they wanted and they all said they hoped he wouldn’t get too tired, and they all, every single one of them, told him how they loved him and wished him a Merry Christmas, too.
And that made Santa Claus so very, very happy.