A Christmas Memory Bringing Christmas to Children in Need

While living in California in his late 20’s and early 30’s my husband took on his own tradition of spending Christmas. “Letters To Santa” gave Christmas purpose for my husband for he too had grown up poor. He would go to the Los Angeles main post office where there were letters from children and families in need arranged through a program from the postal service.

Around holiday planning time of our first year living in Los Angeles together, my husband and I had that family discussion about Christmas plans. He wanted to continue the tradition he had left behind after moving back to New York and this time I would be part of it as his family.

The letter was addressed “To Santa Claus, North Pole”. Dear Santa Claus, My name is Ricky and I am 9 years old. I live with my mother, who is very tired as she is looking after my grandmother who is old, who lives with us too, my two sisters, my sisters baby boy and my father who is not able to walk since he was shot in the back during a gang fight while standing at the bus stop. My mom works at night cleaning. I am not asking for anything except a wheel chair for my father so I can go to the park with him again. I hope you get this letter and if you do, do not forget us. Thank you Santa Claus, signed, Ricky (Compton, East LA).

It was Christmas morning. The SUV was loaded with books and toys, Christmas dinner with all the trimmings and a wheel chair donated by a local medical equipment vendor. It was drizzling that Christmas as we entered East LA. It seemed dark with the occasional anemic sprawl of tacky colored lights behind the grated windows and doors. We arrived at Ricky’s house. It was dark through the windows in the tiny two-story government townhome in which they lived. We rang the bell and slowly lights came on. A tired, middle-aged women in a nightshirt answered the door. “Santa sent us to drop off your gifts”, was our opening line. Slowly the family appeared, looks of curiosity on their faces, “Who were these people at the front door with arms full of wrapped gifts and bags over-flowing with food?”. Through the chained crack of the door we presented the letter; big careful printing in blue pencil crayon on white lined paper, signed “Ricky”. “Where is Ricky?” we asked. Still confused, Ricky’s mother invited us in. Ricky, a shy, gangly boy peered at us from behind his now bubbling and excited sisters, grandmother and mother. “Dear Santa Claus….” We read the letter and as we did we gave each member of the family the gift Ricky had, with precise detail, explained: medical books to his sister who wanted to be a nurse, but could not afford the books or the time to study at the library; his other sister, a single mother who loves clothes, but now needs to provide for a child without the father; and lastly Ricky’s father, whose sobs of happiness and disbelief began to fill the room as we brought in the wheel chair. Ricky was silent, and then whispered a mouse-quiet “thank you” with his eyes widened in shock. “Now you can take your father to play with you at the park,” we said.

With the family in an embrace of sobbing tears, we silently departed, knowing that this Christmas morning had changed both our lives and the memory of this Christmas for Ricky and his family. It was our first Christmas in Los Angeles and the beginning of our own new Christmas memories together.


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