Letter to Santa

As a Christmas birthday child, this season is magical for so many reasons. Mainly because it’s filled with hope, anticipation, laughter, cheer, love, and so much joy. It’s the period when it’s OK to act like a child and feel like one too. Perhaps more so than children themselves. We feel everything so intensely and the emotions that fill the air during this most wonderful time of the year are no exception.

You never get too old to rejoice in the magic of this season. The fact that it brings people together. It fills your heart with excitement, optimism, happiness, and so much love. Particularly if you get to spend it with people who mean the most to you. Because in essence, that’s what we spend all year waiting for. To celebrate the best part of it (and for some, a birthday too) with those we cherish.

We’re comfortable with being vulnerable and letting it show. Of how happy we are when we enter an elf factory, or stand under a huge lighted-up Christmas tree for a selfie, or get lost in all the seasonal decorations of a store. We don’t mind to demonstrate that side of us, because it’s a part of who we are, and it’s contagious too. Admit it, you can’t not smile at a (small-sized) Christmas-obsessed person camouflaged as an elf among large decorations and rejoicing so much that everything else seems trivial.

Christmas makes us all kids at heart. So, it doesn’t matter how many we’ve experienced, we seize the opportunity to write a letter to Santa. It’s just that we don’t ask for toys anymore. We ask for moments, people, and emotions. We ask that nothing be taken away from us. We express the urge for love, serenity, and happiness. For things to work out as we deserve. For our heart’s desires to be fulfilled.

When we start writing “Dear Santa”, it all magically becomes clear; what it is that we truly want, what matters most, and what’s important for us.

Writing a letter to Santa brings back that innocence we lose as we grow up, that belief that we have that the world will be as magical as we dream it. It reminds us that what we dream we can create, and what we imagine we can be, as long we have an open heart and mind…and just believe.

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Dear Santa

“Dear Santa…”

It was strange for an adult to write such a letter. She had stopped since a few years ago when the child inside her wrote a sweet letter to Santa together with her partner at the time, but she never received a reply despite the elves’ reassurances that she would. Disappointment got the better of her.

But the truth is, she stopped writing to Santa because she didn’t know what to ask for. Or rather, she didn’t feel the need to ask for anything.

This year was a bit different.

“I don’t want you to bring me anything. But I don’t want you to take anything away from me either”.

She could feel the emotional charge sliding through the pen into the ink on the paper.

“I don’t want things anymore. I want people, emotions and experiences. I want the things that will remain intact in time and my heart. I want to be surrounded by people who love me and who stay around for the hard times. People who love in a similar way as I do – with all their heart, unconditionally and without expected anything in return”.

She remembered how easily she could get hurt from those she loved the most, because to them she never raised a shield of protection. She left too much of her heart and soul exposed. It’s something you can’t get back. Because that is how some people love: purely.

But in reality, everyone expects something from others. It’s the source of all disappointment. That we expect and anticipate others to act in the same way we do. But not everyone has the same heart or viewpoint we do.

“My wish this year is for things to fall into place. For our souls to be filled with love and serenity, for those who care for us to be strong and healthy, for all the things that cannot be bought to make us happy.

After all, the magic only happens if you believe in it”.

She signed off “with love” and let it fall in the post-box full of anticipation that this time it would be different.