A gift from Santa’s postal elf

Every year for the past few years, in the weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, I’ve enjoyed a very special duty. My mail carrier brings me all the letters that local children write to Santa Claus.
Each year, one or two letters stand out in my mind, whether for the drawings the children send, the questions they ask or the comments they make about their families.
One year, a little girl wrote to Santa Claus with one heart-wrenching request: Could Santa please get her mommy and daddy to stop fighting?
It bothered me that I could offer that child only words of comfort, so I decided I would do what I could when the opportunity arose.
A letter came in from a young lady who asked for a $30 gift certificate to Bookshop Santa Cruz. I called the bookstore and explained myself as a volunteer with the Felton Post Office. Would the bookstore be interested in making a donation? The manager asked me to go down to the bookstore and bring the letter with me.
Once there, I spoke to the assistant manager in charge of charities. Apparently, it’s the bookstore’s policy to issue gift certificates in denominations of $10 or $20. When the assistant manager asked how much I wanted the gift certificate to be made out for, I simply said I’d be grateful for whatever amount the bookstore wanted to give. The assistant manager disappeared upstairs with the young lady’s letter to Santa, intending to make a copy. When he returned, he brought with him a gift certificate for the full $30.
The best letter to Santa Claus I’ve received came not from a child, but from a grandmother who was helping her grandson and granddaughter write their first letter to Santa. What a letter it was! Simple and heartfelt, yet lively and informative. The little boy and girl were worried because they’d be moving soon. Their family had just received approval for housing assistance, and they wanted to be sure Santa Claus knew where to find them. They were very happy about their new home, because it meant that Mommy wouldn’t have to sleep on Grandma’s couch anymore. Along with small requests for one toy for each of them, the children asked Santa to bring some perfume for Mommy. Enclosed with the letter were two small school photos of the little boy and girl.
With that letter in hand, I went to Toys ’R’ Us. Once I explained my mission and showed the manager the letter, complete with photos, the manager said I could have 10 percent off anything in the store. My husband and I searched the aisles, comparing and debating, until we settled on a racetrack set for the little boy and a larger Raggedy Ann doll for the girl.
Then came Christmas Eve. I donned my light-up reindeer antlers and loaded up our car with two big, brightly-wrapped gifts. Once again, my husband (chief elf and driver) joined the adventure as we located the small mother-in-law cottage where the grandmother, mother and two children lived.
As luck would have it, the little boy and girl and their mother had gone out to look at Christmas decorations. I introduced myself to the grandmother as a volunteer with the Felton Post Office, there to make a special delivery.
As I carried in the first large box, the grandmother’s eyes widened. I brought in the second box and set it beside the first under the Christmas tree. Given the modest size of the tree, the gifts looked huge!
By now, the grandmother was in tears. She kept asking me who I was, what agency I was from, all so she could know who to thank.
“I’m just an elf, ma’am,” was all I would say.
I had brought with me one other gift. It was more than clear to me that the grandmother was a singular woman helping her daughter provide these two sweet children with the best life they could have. I had taken a small pewter fairy godmother charm and strung it with red and green beads into a necklace. I presented it to the grandmother, along with a letter from Santa Claus awarding her the title of honorary elf.
The grandmother swept me into a huge hug. She told me she and her grandchildren had been watching a TV special about Santa Claus and the people who answer his letters. The grandmother suggested they give it a try. Thanks to her love, those lucky kids had a Christmas they will always remember.
Lillian Csernica is a professional writer. She has lived in Felton for nine years and in the San Lorenzo Valley for 15.