Let’s talk to Santa!

Devin Owen
MSMU Class of 2026

(12/2023) As the holiday season approaches, we are subconsciously forced to slip into the mindset pertaining to our holiday traditions. Personally, I revert back to the small child excited to wake up early Christmas morning and bug her parents until they get out of bed, to have her whole family come over to indulge in the Christmas morning breakfast while we open gifts together. Granted, these traditions have changed significantly over the years; no longer am I waking up both parents, but rather waking up one and then driving to the home of the other. No longer are my parents holding the Christmas morning breakfast festivities, and I am no longer a child. However, I will always be a child at heart, which is why my love for Christmas is so strong. No longer am I the small, impressionable 5-year-old, but instead I am the small, impressionable 19-year-old with nieces and nephews to spoil and introduce to the holiday traditions I have always loved.

My niece is finally at the age where she can understand and enjoy the traditions that we have and the new ones we’ve implemented in recent years: making and decorating Christmas cookies, giving gifts to family members, drinking hot cocoa and watching The Santa Claus, baking homemade cinnamon rolls in addition to Mama Cindie’s ‘Christmas Morning Breakfast’ casserole, spreading reindeer food for Santa’s famous helpers, and writing letters to the big man himself.

That was another huge tradition in my family: writing letters to Santa and then mailing them off. I have always found this activity to be extremely beneficial in life. The world we live in is difficult enough, so we should let kids be kids and embrace every depth of their imagination. By that I am tempted to ask: if you wrote letters to Santa as a kid, what did you write in those letters? What did you ask Santa for when you wrote to him? My letters to Santa growing up usually consisted of the usual: ‘toys, toys, toys…oh! And a puppy!’ There were also some letters that asked for blessings of sorts: "Dear Santa, this year for Christmas I want my parents to get a divorce. A weird ask, really, but I can tell they’re not happy anymore." In all honesty, the letters I wrote to Santa each year varied dramatically.

For those who have the tradition of Santa in their lives, writing him letters could implement a stronger belief as it provides a physical representation of their belief—the presents help with that as well. Every kid who writes to Santa gets to prove to themselves that their belief is strong, it exists, and they are fully aware. However, writing these letters is not the only part of the process that helps to strengthen the belief in the physical embodiment of the holiday spirit. Many places have holiday workshops set up for kids to write their letters and decorate them, then they get to mail them off to the North Pole through the fancily decorated Santa mailboxes. Giving the kids the opportunity to interact with their belief only adds strength and health to their own imagination, a beautiful form of positive creativity.

Not only does this activity provide benefits to the children in forms of imagination, but it also offers benefits to intelligence. If you start having children write their letters to Santa at a young age, their writing skills begin to improve or develop. The act of writing letters requires many various language skills such as spelling, grammar, organization, list making, etc. Having the ability to write letters in a fun, exciting, and magical way adds fun and enjoyment to a learning process; it provides an opportunity for children to practice and enhance their writing and organizational skills while still having fun and embracing their imagination. Intelligence though isn’t just directed towards cognitive functions in an educational way, but rather it targets multiple concepts such as emotional/mental activity as well. Writing letters allows for the kids participating to build emotional responses and empathy, as they can ask to help others rather than just themselves; such asks reinforce the spirit behind what is known as ‘the season of giving.’ Kids are much more thoughtful than we give them credit for; it is one of the many beauties of childhood.

Writing letters to Santa was always one of my favorite traditions growing up—a tradition which I hope to pass on to my own children when that time does come. I never enjoyed it because I got to ask for things for myself though, I think that the joy and love I felt from it came from getting to spend time with my family in an exciting manner. Each year my mom, dad, grandmother, and siblings would trade off who we wrote our letters with; it was a super fun and inclusive way to start off our holiday season because we all got to write our letters together. I feel as though since entering my teenage and adult years we haven’t given a second thought to the traditions we once had, writing these letters being the main focal point with that. Maybe it’s a part of growing up; maybe we just forget the childlike joys we once had. Either way, I often find myself wishing I could go back an embrace these joys and traditions without the hinderance of doubt that has now been placed; adulting is hard and I miss being a kid.

Traditions are the building blocks of our life; our daily lives are built around them and they have shaped us into who we are. I think that the best part of them though, is when they begin to change as we grow up. No longer am I writing letters to Santa myself, but instead I am encouraging my niece and nephew—who are the brightest lights in my life—to write their letters each December and mail them off to the North Pole. I get to see their faces light up as they decorate their letters and then tell me what they want to write; the kitchen table covered in glitter and stickers, the kids shrieking in excitement, the pure joy written all over their face. Who wouldn’t want to write a letter to Santa after seeing that?