I don’t recall ever writing a letter directly to Santa, but I do remember making a Christmas list each year.  I guess I just trusted my mother to forward the lists to the North Pole.  Apparently she did, because I always got what I wanted and then some.

When I was in second grade I asked for a typewriter.  A real typewriter.  Not a Fisher Price-type toy typewriter, oh no!  I wanted the real thing.  I wanted to type words, sentences, stories.  I wanted to hear the ding at the end of the line signaling me to return the carriage with a satisfying thump.  I wanted to roll the paper up and down and finally, at story’s end, yank it from the machine in grandiose style.

On Christmas morning I was thrilled to find a typewriter under the tree, turquoise with white plastic keys.  Better yet, there was a note in it, typed by Santa himself!  I felt like the luckiest kid on earth…

until I read the entire note:

Dear Ida Beth,

Merry Christmas.  Be a good girl and clean up your room.

Love,

Santa

Hey, wait a minute!  That’s not something Santa would say!

Those words came directly from my mother’s mouth, and I knew it.  My mother had contaminated Santa!  She told him what to type in that note!  This was her evil plan to make me clean my room!  I tried to play it cool and not let on that I knew what she was up to, and pretty soon I forgot about the note altogether if only for a little while.

I never forgot about the typewriter, though.  While the current technology is so much easier to use, I kind of miss the dings, the thumps, and yanking out the finished piece with a flourish.

This year I have asked Santa for a new laptop.  Though I still don’t clean my room much, I have been pretty good otherwise, so I like my chances.  There won’t be any thumps or dings, no paper to roll up and down.  Hopefully there won’t be a note either:

Dear Ida Beth,

Merry Christmas.  Be a good girl and change your mother’s air conditioner filter.

Love,

Santa