Letters to Santa: David

Written by: Lillie

Thank you for the train set you gave me last year. This year, I'd like to have something different from what I usually ask you. This year I want to go home.

I haven't been home in a looong time, Santa, and I'd like to be with my family this Christmas. Christmas is a time of family. We always have good Christmases together and it is the best time of the year. It's even better than my birthday. Grandma and Grandpa come all the way from the Far Off Country, where Papa says they live. Nana and Yaya eat with us like they always do, once a week. I love them all.

Nana is just like Mamma, but that's because they say "like mother, like daughter", and Mamma is Nana's daughter. They're both so warm and good to me, and love me very much. I love them too. They are also really good cooks. Nana makes the best turkey and stuffing ever, and no one can beat Mamma's plum pudding. Christmas dinner is the best meal of the whole year, I think. And Yaya is always there to say how good the cooking is. Papa says Yaya is very proud of his two little women. Nana and Mamma don't look little to me. Yaya's got the nicest cinnamon smell about him, and he always has a peppermint to give me. He still sends me a peppermint every week, just as if I were home and he were visiting us every week.

Grandma doesn't cook, but she's got all these Far Off Country sweets. She tells us the names and I don't believe I've ever heard of any of them. Grandma is a great woman to tell stories about the sweets too. She always has a fairy tale to tell us while we wait for the food to be cooked, or before bedtime. I don't know where she gets all these wonderful stories. My sissy says that Grandma is actually a fairy in disguise. I don't always know if my sister is telling me a lie, but Grandma looks just like a fairy. She's got the lovely, softest white hair, and her eyes are sometimes blue and sometimes green. She doesn't look a bit old and has got pink cheeks and a big, lovely smile. She's ever so cheerful and kind to us. So is Grandpa. He doesn't tell stories but he jokes and plays with us. Every year he teaches us how to play a new game and we have so much fun. He's very clever at carving, and he often has a wooden ornament to give to one of us, or a bracket for Mamma.

And Papa and Grandpa will bring in a Christmas tree for us and we decorate it while they hang up the lights outside. Grandma puts up the holly and the mistletoe, and all the other household decorations we have. The tree makes the room smell deliciously of pine, and then the food smells make it better. We get cookies to hang up as decorations, and lots of tinsel and candles too. Mamma says we will burn the house down one day, but Papa always laughs and tells us to go ahead anyway. When we're done, everything looks so bright and cheerful and colourful and Christmassy, we always call to Nana and Mamma to come out and see. They do come, and they always say they can't leave the turkey and the pudding, but then they stop to say how beautiful everything is, before they go back and get into a fright about the food. The food is always delicious anyway.

We all sit around the big round table we only use for special occasions, and everyone is very happy. Everyone is talking and making jokes. We laugh at everything, even if they don't seem very funny at any other time. The grown ups talk about long ago times, sometimes even before we children were born. If we are lucky, we get to hear about something silly that Mamma or Papa did and we laugh at them too. Mamma and Papa don't mind and laugh with us just as well. We get to drink our favourite drinks. There is plenty of juice and milk and wine and water for anyone who wants to drink any of those. After dinner there might be coffee or tea for the grown ups if they want it.

And the crackers! I love opening the crackers! We get nice, small things and sometimes I give mine to Mamma. One year I got some pearl beads. I wouldn't know what to do with them, of course, so I gave them to Mamma. She was very happy with them and kissed me. Then she gave me a pack of cards she had in her cracker, which was much better. The hats are always very funny and we look so strange when we put them all, but it makes it all the nicer for the laughing. And at the end of it, we open our presents and thank everyone for them. They are always nice presents, and nothing is ever useless. Everyone knows just what someone else would like and we keep these presents for a long, long time.

So you see, Santa, I would like to go home this year. Last year I got sick and came here just before Christmas. Everyone was very nice and Nana and Yaya, Grandpa and Grandma came to visit me for a while but they couldn't stay. They gave me presents and I opened them, and I had a cracker too, but it just wasn't the same. The hospice had a tree and it was decorated, but it was fake and it wasn't as homey as our tree. I couldn't make snowmen with my brother and sister. I didn't get to eat the turkey and the pudding. It was still very nice and I'm very glad that the hospice people were so kind to me, but I would like to go home this year. Please.

Thank you, Santa, and have a very Merry Christmas!

Yours truly,

David