My Letter to Santa

Hello my friends! Sorry for another late post today -- it's been that kind of a week. ;) I know you're wondering why I'm talking about Christmas in October but man have I got a story for you!! I planned another post for today but I just had to share what happened to me this morning. 

It started when I ran into Hallmark earlier today to pick up the ornament catalog for my son. (We love looking through it. Yes, in October.) The employees were grabbing one for me and while I waited I noticed a beautiful Christmas book on the counter. It was called Letters to Santa Claus and because I love anything Christmas, I picked it up and starting looking at it: 

It really is a lovely book. I noticed in the first few pages that it's based on letters sent to the city of Santa Claus, Indiana and thought, wow that's cool -- the Indiana connection. 

I was in a hurry so I very quickly scanned through some of the pages. Each page is a scanned letter to Santa, in it's original form. What's really cool is they are separated into decades, with the first ones from the 1940's. What a treasure!

I had no idea what a treasure it would be. :) You see, I only looked at a couple pages and was getting ready to put it down when I flipped to one more. I thought I was losing my mind for a minute. 

I was looking at my own (childhood) handwriting. I can't even describe the confusion/amazement/bewilderment I felt. There was just no way. I started reading and none of it was familiar to me. Then I saw the name at the bottom…Sarah. 

I could not even believe what I was reading. 

It was my letter to Santa: 

If you can't read it here's what it says (spelling corrected): 

Dear Santa Claus, 

I love you very much. I watched a show about you and they said there was no Santa Claus. But I believe in you. If you are really Santa Claus could you get me a Baby Alive? They boys in my class said that there was no Santa Claus. My mom said that they will be disappointed when they don't get anything. You are my best friend I've got. 

Your friend, 

Sarah

I read through the whole thing quickly and when I came to the part about the Baby Alive doll I finally let myself fully understand that this was MY letter. I wanted that doll SO BAD. She peed and pooped people. :) And I got her that Christmas. (Santa is real!) 

How amazing is this?? I'm still in shock. I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or just smile or what. I told the ladies in the store and they couldn't believe it. 

I still can't believe it. What's weird is I would have never known if I hadn't gone in there and picked up that book. And out of the very few pages I looked at, my letter was one of them. What a special, special thing.

I remember where we lived when I got that doll and that year was a tough one -- my parents had just separated and we moved to an apartment in Indianapolis from our big farmhouse in a very small farming town. The kids were brutal, I was totally out of my element, I missed my Dad and it was just a rough year overall. My childhood after that had some wonderful times but a lot of hard times. I only have one small box of memories and some photos -- everything else was lost. So as you can imagine, I can't stop smiling about having this part of my history. (Of course I had to buy the book!)

I just had to share this story with you. :) I can't even tell you how much I needed this after this week. What a beautiful gift to get a piece of my childhood in such a lovely and unexpected way. 

P.S. My handwriting was pretty awesome for about eight years old, right? And how I spelled disappointed correctly and not said, I'll never know. ;)

Edited to add -- here's a link to the book, I found it online. Turns out mine was chosen from millions of letters sent from all over the world over the years. Unbelievable.