"The earliest Santa letters are ... didactic, usually coming from St. Nicholas, rather than written to him. The minister Theodore Ledyard Cuyler
recalled receiving "an autograph letter from Santa Claus, full of good counsels" during his childhood in 1820s western New York."
                                                                                                                                           --"A Brief History of Sending a Letter to Santa", Smithsonian Magazine, December 3, 2015

The first year he wrote one hundred.
After thirty years he writes three thousand
a year starting in autumn, the dying time.

He buys his own stationary and postage—
his gift to the universe—some five pages
long, all hand-written, sent to anyone

from people who fill out his online form:
a child, a senior, in dozens of countries,
several languages, an expiation of his pain

and from his letters he creates children's
stories by the hundreds about Santa and bears
and magic. The kids don't know where Santa's

letters come from, a small cold town next to
a desert, a writer who indulges in story-telling,
who addresses children by name, speaks to

their dreams and wishes before they even
know themselves, one anonymous man
helping Santa, still recovering from the war.


© by Emily Strauss.
Used with the author's permission.