Letters to Santa get personal replies
Like their authors, each letter is unique. Some writers get straight to the point, like 10-year-old Neida, who wrote in black and red marker: “Dear, Santa Claws, I want a Nentendo D.S. black and red, I also want a remot control!”
Madeline kept things simple, didn’t give her age, skipped the greeting and started with a list: “1) Jewels, 2) Gears, 3) Crystals, 4) Beverly Hills china . . . 8) Snow.”
There are practical ones: “Dear Santa Claus,” wrote Carson, who asked for butterscotch and a real dog, “can you come early because I have to go to Pennsylvania.”
And heartbreaking ones: “Dear Santa, I live in a group home. I have autism and no language, that’s why my brother . . . is sending this letter for me.”
In a ritual at least as old as oversized stockings and mall Santas, children this month penned uncounted crayon-scribbled letters to St. Nick. They stuffed them in envelopes addressed to the North Pole and sent them off believing each would get due consideration.
In San Juan Capistrano, they do.
For several years, letters citywide addressed to Santa have landed in Heidi Ivanoff’s office.
Ivanoff, the city’s special events coordinator, dutifully stacks the letters and hands them out to an army of elves. Anyone in this south Orange County city who writes a letter to Santa gets a handwritten, well-considered response from a dedicated volunteer, written on Santa stationery and enclosed in a red, holiday-themed envelope.
Like the hopeful children, each volunteer is unique.
There’s 15-year-old Jackie Mitchell, who answers letters pretending to be Buddy the Elf “from the Will Ferrell movie.”
“I know you’ve been good this year,” she writes to each child, believing it to be true, “and I’m going to try and get you what you want.”
In the long-ago days when Jackie, who is serving her third year as president of the local 4-H club, believed in Santa Claus, she gave her own letters over to a grandfather, who told her he had a personal relationship with Mr. Claus.
“I thought it was so cool because no one else’s grandpa knew Santa.”
Eva Crabbs, who, like Madeline, did not give her age, has been responding to Santa letters for at least a dozen years.
Last year, she said, it seemed every child wanted nothing more than a Nintendo Wii game system. This year many worried about global warming, asking such things as, “Is the snow melting? How are the polar bears holding up?”
She tries to make each response different.
“I’ll try to do a vivid description: ‘The reindeer are outside practicing their running and jumping so they’ll be strong for the big day,’ or, ‘The elves are outside taking a break, throwing snowballs at each other.’ ”
When Crabbs’ college-age sons were young, Christmas dinner was followed by a walk during which, they believed, Santa came.
A family member would put an old hiking boot in the fireplace while they were gone and would say it was left behind by Santa.
“They believed it,” Crabbs said, “hook, line and sinker.”
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