Some of you watched Mommy’s Time Out yesterday and got a heads up on today’s post.

Well…it’s here! It’s time to learn about my conversation with Emalee about Santa and some things I learned after we were done.

This is pretty much how our conversation went:

Emalee: I wrote a letter to Santa at school today!

Me: Wow! That’s great sweetie…what did you ask for?

Emalee: Umm…no mom….I can’t tell you! That’s for me and Santa to know!

Me: Uh…okay…why can’t I know what you asked Santa for?

Emalee: BECAUSE! Santa just knows what I want! I don’t need to tell anyone! I didn’t even put what I want in my letter! Santa just knows and it will be there on Christmas morning!

Me: Umm…well sweetie…who told you that Santa just knows what you want? That’s what the letter is for. Don’t you want to write him another one so that he knows what you want?

Emalee: UGH! Mom! He KNOWS ALREADY!! I so don’t have to tell him! You and Daddy will see on Christmas morning!

She then walks away as I try to figure out what to do! Holy crap! My kid is going to be CRUSHED on Christmas morning if what she wants isn’t there! What do I do?!?!?

So the next day the letter she wrote at school finally made it home and I was able to get a look at what she wrote. It was interesting and made me giggle…but then I remember that she said she didn’t write down what she really wanted…

how do I handle this?!?

Do I just get her what she put on her list and let her learn that way that Santa doesn’t just know?

Do I take her to a store that has a Santa (sadly this isn’t really an option because it cost an arm and a leg to see Santa now) and have him explain that he doesn’t just “know”?

Do I try to talk to her again and explain that Santa doesn’t just know? Tried this one…even had grandparents try…still no luck! She is dead set in her thoughts!

Well…while I was having a mental breakdown over it I decided to look online and see if anyone else had ever had this issue and how they handled it…

apparently MY KID IS WEIRD AND ONE OF A KIND!

This lead me to think that maybe I need to write down some guidelines on letters to Santa for my girls in the future!

How to PROPERLY send a letter to Santa:

1. Don’t let it get pushed back! Go ahead and get that sucker written as close to December 1st as possible!! Heck you may even want to do it before Thanksgiving if you are one of those “freaks” people that go out for Black Friday.
2. Help your child write their letter! If they are young you can always do what Emalee’s class did and draw pictures of what they want and then “write” what it is underneath. (Be sure to ask them so that you can write the correct spelling if you can’t read something or tell from the picture.) Try to make it known that they need to be polite and that we do not always get what we ask for. I like to limit my girls to 5 items that they want to ask for. Generally they only get 2 of those items from Santa…if they get the rest it is from Mom & Dad. I explain it this way: Santa has a lot of boys and girls to provide gifts for and we don’t want to be greedy and ask for too much. This has often caused me to be amazed by my  child…she will sit down and think extremely hard about what she wants and why. 
3. Decide how you want to send the letter. You can send it through Snail Mail (which is what we usually do in order to work on how to write and send a letter) or using an online program like the one shown at the end of this list.

• Send it by post. Write the following address on the envelope:
  • Santa Claus, North Pole, H0H 0H0, Alaska I got this from the United Postal Service Website
  • Post it. Don’t forget to add sufficient postage! A big part of the fun is to have your child place it into the mailbox. Make a ritual of it.

I like to either go online on the website below and print off the response provided or write one myself to let the girls know that their letter was received. Just a little extra that I do…

• Send it online. Look for the website: ALetter4Santa This is a FREE service and does NOT require email address or anything.
  • Fill out the basic information needed as shown below:
  • Click “Send It”
  • Be sure that your child gets a chance to read their response from Santa. You have to wait for a response on some other sites such as Write Santa Clause At Home. Other sites charge you for a response…while this site is great…I think I would just type one up myself and send it if I was looking for that.

    

    This site is pretty cute and even links to coloring pages, games, and tracking Santa!

While doing all of my wonderful research into letter writing I ran across a site that I felt deserved to be shared…It’s called Be An Elf.

Basically, this site provides a place for letters of needy children to be shared and you can select one or twenty and you get to write a response and send a gift! How awesome is that?? I just wish it was more wide spread right now it is just in major cities because it is a time consuming project. Hmm..maybe a project for next year…who knows!

So tell me…how would you deal with the conversation I had with Emalee? Does your family do letters to Santa? How do you do them?