Dear Santa

Tessie and I have been talking about writing a letter to Santa for some time now.  Today. we finally pulled it off.  The kids were sent home early from school due to weather, and so we had a whole afternoon for unplanned activities.  Christian went down for a nap, and Tes laid down for a while, but didn’t sleep.  She soon came walking downstairs, searching for me, and looking for something to do.  I was finishing up a special order sign, and so she wanted to work on an art project too.  I suggested we write a letter to Santa, and Tes agreed that was a great idea.

I gathered some crayons and some nice paper, and set up a work station for Tes, right next to mine.  I wrote a sample “Dear Santa” for her on a scrap piece of paper, and she studied it closely.  She then wrote it out on her own, very slowly and carefully, across the top of the page.  She was very proud of herself, and I echoed the sentiment.  I then asked her to tell me what she wanted to tell Santa.  Tessie immediately launched into a narrative that I lost track of right away.  I stopped her, and suggested she just tell Santa what she wanted for Christmas.  “I want a Princess Frog dress and a Princess Frog movie.”  “Is that all?” I asked, surprised.  She nodded, then added “I have been very good.”  Well I couldn’t argue with that.  I wrote down her requests, and she signed her name at the bottom.

As she decorated her letter, I watched her with a full heart.  I don’t know when she got big enough to start writing letters to Santa, it happened without me realizing.  Her concentration as she worked was so endearing.  We both sat back and looked at the final project with satisfaction.  I told her that Pat, our elf on the shelf, would deliver it to Santa.  Tessie was pleased, and moved on to other things, but I continued to look at the letter.  This small task seemed like a really big deal to me, and made me quite sentimental.  I was then snapped out of my sappy stupor, when I realized I hadn’t bought either of the only two items Tes had asked for.  Whoops.  Sentimentality, although beautiful, can also be a little pricey.