Please let Lalie love Wyatt

I am all wrapped up in Santa letters

This is strictly an artist’s rendering of Santa answering letters. When I answer letters as Santa’s stand-in, I’m usually in sweats and my beard is not nearly this full.

My first Christmas after moving to my little Connecticut River valley town, I volunteered to answer the letters to Santa children drop off at the local library. I don’t remember why, other than I thought it would be a cool thing to do.

Every year since, I sit down and for a few weeks in December open these painstakingly lettered notes that are festooned with stickers, glitter and and drawings of Santa, reindeer, the whole Christmas vibe. It has become as much a part of my tradition as putting up a tree.

Most of the letters are pretty standard, with a list of toys I have to look up so that I can respond as if I deeply know my toys. As Santa’s stand-in, you never promise any particular gift. You simply say you’ve shared the letter with the elves, who are right now working hard in the workshop, fueled on candy and anxious to make this holiday awesome. And then you close with something poetic, like reminding children to tuck themselves in on Christmas Eve knowing that the moment they’re in the sweetest part of their dreams, Santa will arrive to leave light and love under the tree.

Do you like that? I made it up, I think. I almost wrote “I” will arrive to leave light and love instead of Santa, because when I answer, I live by WWSS, or What Would Santa Say. I don’t become Santa, per se, but I try to think like Santa, who, to my way of thinking, is this big glowing ball of love anxious to tell children who are being too hard on themselves to ease up a bit. There are a lot of children who are hard on themselves. They spew out confessions and promises and I feel like I’m jettisoned back to the mercy seat in church. The biggest kindness I can perform, I think, is to ease them off that seat and turn them loose to go play. The world will judge your harshly enough. For now, fly free.

I gotta tell you, you can sit down in a pretty foul mood (which I have, I really have) and it only takes a few letters before you’re Kris-Kringle-deep into the season. There is something about touching pure faith that will do that to you.

My record (from the first year) was 75 letters — 75! — though I’m probably going answer more this year. The numbers of missives vary, but every year, there’s at least one letter that gives me pause. I’ve cried over a few, not because they’re sad, but because they’re just so beautiful. This year, that letter came from a little boy named Wyatt, who lives in Enfield. His list was pretty basic, but he closed with a plea that Santa “please make Lalie fall in love with me.” I’m judging from Wyatt’s handwriting that he’s new to pencils, so I’m going to think this is the pure kind of love, the first kind of love that can (and most likely will) break your heart.

(There was no corresponding letter from Lalie, so I’m going with Wyatt’s version of things.)

The answer to this is that it’s wonderful to have a special friend and that he’s a lovable boy, I can tell.

What you do not say is that the first loves are strictly practice, and you should absolutely not hang your hopes on the first person who steals your heart. It’s a big world out there, Wyatt. Be prepared to kiss a lot of frogs. Had I settled on my first love, I’d be living in a double-wide with a Trump-loving husband named Randy. I think we can all see what a dead end that would have been for both me and for Randy.

But God, I hope she loves him, even a little bit. Or is that Santa, I hope she loves him, even a little bit.