Renew An Old Correspondence by Meta tron
August 20th, 2008 4:48 AMThanks to Facebook. No. No there isn't. They're all there, a click away. Hoorah!
But there is one correspondence I have let slip.
When I was little I used to write a letter to Santa every year and every year Santa would respond. Sure he never wrote much, just a card saying 'Happy Christmas, love Santa' but the transaction was there - I would write to him and he would write to me and bring me a gift.
But now, I'm a grown up (kinda) and I realised, when I saw this task, that I didn't write to Santa this year. In fact, I haven't written to Santa for quite a few years, I can't even remember when I stopped, it just kinda happened. Not just that, but I didn't get any presents from Santa - not one! And why should I have if I didn't ask?!
I felt guilty.
Not just for abandoning Santa's annual letter but for never really writing to him any way unless I wanted something - how selfish, how inconsiderate. My mother calls that 'Cupboard Love'.
So my resolution: Re-new my correspondence with Santa.
First letter
Dear Santa,
Hi there, I know it's not xmas but I thought I'd say hello. Sorry I haven't written for so long, I hope you don't mind.
I'm going to try to make up for it now. You must be exhausted after the resent massive deadline, I hope you have enough time to kick back before the prep for next year kicks off.
All the best,
Minkette x
I addressed this letter for the North Pole and sent it out by Royal Mail.
Second Letter.
I realised that post is not the fastest of delivery methods over long distances, and the north pole is about as far as you can get without sending circumnavigating the globe. Then I remembered the way we used to send messages to Santa when I was little.
My Mum always said that the quickest way to despatch your letter was to burn it so the message went up the chimney (the same way as Santa comes down you see). We never had a real fire in our house, so we used to burn our letters on a candle. My Mum said that fairies then carried the letter away to Santa (and some times you could even see it happening*). This magical form of instant messaging would speed up my communications.
Dear Santa,
Hi there, this is the second message I'm sending you but it will probably get to you first!! When you get the 'first' letter I hope you have a chuckle! I just wanted to drop you a line and say Hello and apologise for not keeping in touch. I hope you and yours are well and having a nice few days break from everything.
All the Best,
Minkette x
I set fire to this on the hob.
I waited several weeks but got no response. This was initially frustrating, but after some consideration I came to understand Santa's apparent stand-offishness. Neither of my messages had said anything that actually required a response and whilst us non-magical-anthropomorphisations-of-winter-festivities might consider it bad form to disregard a hearty 'Hello', Santa's experiences of social interaction are quite different.
What we have here are simple cultural differences.
I came to realise that in corresponding with Santa certain etiquettes are required which differ from what I may consider usual. Firstly, a deadline - Santa is normally expected to respond to a message on or before a specific date (ie 24th or 25th December depending on the writer's nationality). I had not given him a date to respond by in either of my letters, meaning that he didn't have a timeframe and was unable to reply. He must have thought this quite rude!
Secondly, I hadn't asked him for anything. Whereas I'd originally thought this to be more polite, I now suspect this was a serious social faux pas. Santa lives to give (both figuratively and literally) and I'd sent him messages which didn't appear to even want him to reciprocate, as far as he was concerned it was an empty gesture.
Dear Lord, I was practically SPAMming him!
My third letter would be different. Shane and I went out to dinner.
I wrote a letter asking for something simple to deliver given our situation as well as a deadline.
I set fire to the letter then went and hid in the loo so as to avoid speaking to the waitress (and thereby contaminating the experiment).
Having returned, and being assured by Shane that I'd missed the waitress coming to our table, I set about waiting for Santa to respond to my letter....
TA-DAH!
No written reply but a response none the less! And he'd taken the liberty of adding his usual creative touch of not interpreting the request entirely to the letter, just so I'd know for sure it was him :D Yay Santa!
*Screw you Brownian motion of localised heat currents in the air acting on ash particles. Screw you... my Mum knows better than so called physics. It's fairies.
Dinner request to Santa
Dear Santa, Please can I have some spring rolls followed by Satay prawns? And can I please have a glass of pineapple juice? I would also like some rice please. in less than an hour. Thanks in advance. Mink x x
Burn baby, burn..
...restaurant inferno!
and as if by magic
Satay prawns!!
Happily ever after
Santa had come through for me once again, although he'd got the order a little bit mixed up. But in true Santa fashion the tofu and pumpkin red curry was BETTER than what I had asked for!
Ho Ho Ho!
Merry Thai curry!
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Haberley Mead
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Burn Unit
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JJason Recognition
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Lank
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teucer
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Optical Dave
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KristinawithaK
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Secret Agent
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Not Here No More
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GYØ Vicki
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Lincøln
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susy derkins
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Terpsichore
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help im a bear
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Bex.
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GYØ Ben
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Blue
Terms
(none yet)20 comment(s)
But why the pressure alla sudden? Doesn't look like any new 250pt tasks have been introduced lately...
It's not a new task I'm after, but it's a super cool one! I'm planning to do it no matter what, so I might as well attempt to get to level 6 before I do so that I'll be able to hand it in. :)
The variation in how different people get their letters to Santa is fascinating.
When I was a kid, we made a fire in the fireplace on Christmas Eve and sat around it engaging in a variety of family Christmas Eve traditions - one of which was all the kids jointly writing a letter to Santa. The letter would then be held above the fire with the fireplace tongs and released; it would then fly up the chimney thanks to either convection or the magic of Santa and some of his elves would snatch it away and take it back to the North Pole.
My parents were lame...
"What do you want for Christmas this year, little Kristina?"
"A Barbie dollhouse!"
"Ok, we'll tell Santa for you."
No letter was ever encouraged.
We did, however, set out huge bowls of lettuce in the backyard for the "reindeer" to eat. Too awesome.
The fireplace thing was a tradition from the family my dad grew up in, and I imagine that if I have kids I'll pass it along to them.
As for the lettuce - we left Santa a plate of cookies, a glass of eggnog, and another plate with carrots he could take up the chimney with him and give to the reindeer.
Playing with fire is such a great Christmas tradition :) We used to leave out a glass of sherry and a mincepie for Santa and a carrot for Rudolph. We'd leave it in the kitchen, so I guess the idea was that Santa took it out to him!
Is eggnog the same as Advocat?
Heh. No.
Although now that I am old enough to buy whiskey, the eggnog I drank last holiday season was mostly the homemade kind. Which involves a not insignificant amount of bourbon.
I only sent a letter to Santa once in my life.
I sent it by postal service.
Then, on the evening of December 23rd, a man who clearly was not Santa but was dressed as him notwithstanding came to the door and offered me a set of lawn-object-buildy-triangle-things because he couldn't find the piece of software I had asked for.
BE CAREFUL SENDING LETTERS TO THE NORTH POLE VIA MUNDANE CARRIERS, FOLKS. THE POSTAL SERVICE INTERCEPTS THEM AND USES THEM TO DISGUISE MIDDLE-AGED HISPANIC MEN AS SANTA CLAUS!
Lawn-object-buildy-triangle-things? What are those?
I can understand the disappointment in not getting what you asked for, but I'm sure there's still some amazement in having a non-santa appear and offer you whatever lawn-object-buildy-triangle-things are.
I've never written a letter to the man himself, but once, when I was six, a woman claiming to be one of Santa's elves called my house and asked what kind of robot I preferred. She said I had my pick between something called Daltanius and Voltron.
No, I'll admit it. Those triangle things were cool.
It's just that you can't trust Santa's mail to go through when the Pasadena Department of Ersatz Holiday Cheer is up in force. ;)
Unless he has spies in the Department.
...actually, I wouldn't put that past him.
Oh, that fat man has spies, believe you me, sir.
But I have to ask again, what are lawn-object-buildy-triangle-things?
They were these big triangles, maybe two feet across, made of vinyl with bendable metal rims in the lining, a hole in the middle, and velcro tabs on the edges to hook them together. The idea was apparently that you could make miniature tents and crawlspaces with them.
I also folded them up and used them as magically-expanding frisbees (they would unfold in the air).
Brilliant. Though you should have been ambitious and asked for wigs too.
I wonder if we're after the same level 6 task...
When I was about six, my sister, my friend David, my cousin Ema, and myself were all visited by a slightly drunk Santa that apparently knew Dave's mom and dressed up as Santa every year to work at the mall.
It was beyond strange.
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