2002-12-05 - 8:17 p.m.

So yesterday? When I said I was going to just run in to the post office and grab some letters and go? Sh'yeah, right. I spent an hour in that overheated room, sitting on a folding chair at a card table, reading all those letters. Sniffling, feeling guilty that I have four pairs of black boots in my closet, and regretting every $3 latte I've ever drunk. I took a bunch, and brought them back to my office and distributed them, and I'm thinking of going back. There was one, from a little boy in Texas, and he asked Santa not to forget him and his brothers and sisters, like he forgot them last year. That kid's having Christmas this year if I have to hock my jewelry. His brothers and sisters, too. The man at the post office told me something great, that you can get a list of grocery stores by zip code, so you can send a gift certificate in their neighborhood. The post office makes you register, since they give you the childs address, but then you send it directly. Deb's child asked for a sheet for her mothers bed, and food. It's good for me to read them, good for me to have it in my face. Good for my gratitude, and my perspective.

Anyway. Becky (I'd link her but she, you know, NEVER updates) told me today that her son doesn't believe in Santa, he's a realist, he knows that many toys couldn't fit in Santa's bag. So cute. He's a mini cynic.

And now a few kid-Trouble Christmas stories to add to the Pomeranian one:

My mother, June C1eaver, is the Queen of Christmas. Feverish cookie baking, extravagent present buying and wrapping, Christmas carols, the whole nine yards. If you call my mothers house on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day, she will cheerily answer the phone, "Merry Christmas!" It was a huge source of consternation to her that I refused to do this.

My brother and I would get ridiculously excited on Christmas morning, and we'd wake up at 3 am and go wake up my parents. Finally, one year, they gave us a clock, and told us that we couldn't come downstairs until the little hand was on the 6. I woke up at 3, and went up to my brothers room, where we turned on the lamp and sat on the floor, crosslegged on his red white and blue shag carpet, side by side, staring at the clock until it got there. 3 hours, people. Insanity.

Also, when I learned (probably on the playground at school) that there was no Santa, I confronted my mother. "Is there such thing as Santa Claus?" And June, not wanting to relinquish one little bit of her holiday fantasy world, tried to give me the old "Santa Claus is a SPIRIT, he lives in our hearts and if we believe in him then he's real..." And she says I cut her off, hands on my hips, and said, "Mom. Is there a guy in a red suit with reindeer, yes or no?" Heh. So Becky's son J? He's my people.

This is the last one, and it's not very nice. When we were kids I used to do something terrible to my brother. I'd go up into his room sporadically during the year, and he'd be sleeping like the dead, and I'd shake him a little and wake him up, "Chris! Chris! Wake up! It's CHRISTMAS!" And he'd sit straight up in bed, eyes wide, hair standing straight up, excited, and then realization would dawn and he'd say, "It is NOT. Shut up." And go back to sleep. Heh. I can still see the expression on his face, clear as day.

I definitely didn't deserve that Pomeranian.

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