Dear Santa,
I have been.
How have you been? Does anyone ever ask you?
When I was a little girl, I was your biggest fan, and I've spent the last half-century getting over you. The worry was almost unbearable. I used to be so worried about the "getting"— worried if I'd been good enough (or at all), if your elves were out in the woods behind my house cutting those switches for me, if coal might dirty my pretty new stocking and if I should put out my old one instead, just in case.
I worried that the door would be locked and you couldn't get in, worried our roof didn't have enough room for your sleigh and that long team of reindeer, worried that Momma and Daddy were never going to bed and the yellow cone of the kitchen light spread across the backyard would force you to pass my house.
A north-facing window hung over my bed, and I spent every Christmas Eve there, on my knees, elbows on the sill, chin in my hands, waiting for you. My ears strained to hear sleigh bells; my eyes swept the sky framed in that glass. As stars blinked into place, I watched for (and willed) one to move. They all seemed to move! I'd gasp and wonder which of those could be you in your sleigh, magic streaming behind it like a comet's tail . . .
I never remembered going to bed, but in the morning, I'd wake, and you'd managed to get by me and my parents. Again. Presents leaned against our tinsel tree, and relief once again washed over me. Somehow, I'd made the right list. There were never any switches, and my stocking bulged with candy, not coal.
I wanted you to stay real for me, my children. The hardest part of adulting is giving you up. My children are grown, and my granddaughter now worries about you.
I have been, and now she is, too.
I'm asking for only one thing for Christmas: If you have time on your way to her house this Christmas Eve, please ring your bells as you fly over me.