Santa’s Coming!
That’s right, it’s that time of the year that the monkey hates the most, Christmas. This holiday has become so over hyped and commercialized that it seems to fly in the face of the original target of honor. The sickening display of store isles filled with boxes of Christmas merchandise and store decorations the day before Halloween is pathetic.
The only redeeming point I see in this lame holiday that forces us to deal with relatives we’d rather forget existed, let alone sit down at a dinner tables for 2 hours trying to make idle conversation, is the wonder in the eyes of children too young to understand the true horrors of the holiday. It’s one of the few times in a child’s life when magic really does exist regardless of life’s situation. One look in the eyes of a child waiting to see the local Santa is something you cannot buy or sell.
Fortunately, I have been involved in a web site every Christmas season for over 10 years now that keeps that magic alive. SantaSearch.org is a not-for-profit website that started from the Canadian postal strike in December of 1997. Fearing that many children wouldn’t be able to write letters to Santa, a web site was created allowing children to write a letter to Santa and get a real response. Those responses have been hand crafted for the past 10 years by the volunteer Elves at SantaSearch.org, without any cost to the users.
Some of the responses we get back from parents are absolute tear jerkers. Stories of families that are struggling and how a letter from Santa made an otherwise dulled child’s eyes light up with the wonder that only Santa can bring. A few letters we get every year are from families with nothing left and nowhere to turn. Not wanting to let the spirit of Santa fail these families, we have a dedicated team of Elves that handle these requests through Operation Santa Search and attempt to find local assistance for the families.
SantaSearch.org has since grown into a large Christmas portal with everything from Music and Lyrics for your favorite Carols to a directory of over 1200 Elf-picked Christmas websites. Along with Operation Santa Search, the website has helped 100′s of families and brightened the faces of 1000′s of children over the years and hopes to continue for many years to come.
I may be a Grinch at Christmas, but I still believe that every child deserves to enjoy the magic of Santa for as long as they can.
I still believe in Santa Claus!