Dear Santa Claus,

Do you know Norman the gnome? Or my elf on the shelf that’s name is Emily ? Does she really fly to you every night to tell you if I was naughty or nice? Thank you for the present. Do you know the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny ? How did you become Santa Claus ? Are you and Saint Nick the same person or are you brothers ? Do you have any sisters ? It was very nice of you to send me that box of stuff. Please tell Mrs. Claus thank you for the sugar cookies recipe. What’s your favorite holiday besides Christmas ? How old are you ? How do you know what to get all the nice chidden ? How did you get all of your reindeers? Where does the coal come from?

My nine year old granddaughter was over last night and today while I was busy in the kitchen acting as her short order cook she asked if she could work on the computer some. I set her up and showed her how to use the spell check. Being nine and growing up in a modern world she is pretty savvy already and soon I could hear her clicking away and asking my ECHO that sits on the desk how to spell things she is not sure of. When breakfast was ready she came to eat and then we got distracted, something that nine year olds and old guys seem to do a lot. Of course our distraction today was to go and cut down two perfect Christmas trees.

After her parents picked her and her perfect tree up I wandered back into the den and found her letter on the screen, I saved it for her to finish on her next visit. So just now I sat down here at the desk and opened up the writing program and read her letter. I am sharing it with you untouched and unedited as a peek into a nine year olds imagination.

She is a smart girl as are all of our grand kids and she takes after me in a few ways. She already is a big reader and is a couple of years ahead of her age group and it now appears she has a knack for writing. Maybe she will become a hard writing reporter it sure looks like she has some questions for Santa that need to be answered. She is at the age where she no longer really believes in Santa but she is also at the age that she wants to believe in Christmas. Some people stop believing in Santa and don’t sing Christmas songs or decorate with lights and bake Gingerbread men. She has two younger sisters at home only one and two years old. To them they have many Christmas’s ahead of them and she is going to enjoy sharing Santa with them. My wife is one of those kind of people as soon as the tree came into the cabin she was already waiting with her boxes of decorations. The granddaughter helped and I just stood back taste testing cookies from the cookie exchange. As I look over this I am starting to wonder, well where does Santa get his coal? We don’t have a mine here at Lake Iwanttobethere