Christmas story: the letters arrive at the North Pole

3 min read · For: Ages 6–9

Every morning in December, just after breakfast, a bell rings at the North Pole.

Ting-a-ling-a-ling!

That is the letter sleigh. It comes gliding over the snowy hills, pulled by two strong reindeer, and it is piled high with sacks. Big sacks. Bulging sacks. Sacks full of letters from children all over the world.

"The letters are here!" shout the elves.

Sorting

The sacks are carried into the letter room, where there is a big round table and a fire crackling in the corner. Pip the elf is in charge.

The elves tip the letters onto the table. There are letters in white envelopes and red envelopes. Letters with stickers and glitter. Letters with drawings of reindeer and snowmen and Christmas trees. Letters written in big wobbly letters, and letters written in tiny, careful ones.

Some letters are in English. Some are in Spanish, or Polish, or Arabic, or Portuguese. Santa can read every one.

The elves sort them into piles. Then Santa comes in, sits in his big armchair by the fire, puts on his glasses and starts to read.

So many wishes

Santa reads every letter. Slowly and carefully.

He reads about a girl who learned to swim this year. About a boy who has a new baby brother who cries a lot. About twins who built the biggest sandcastle on the beach. About a child whose favorite thing in the world is drawing horses.

Some letters have a long list of wishes. Some have just one. Some only say "Hello, Santa, how are the reindeer?"

Santa smiles at every letter. He laughs at the funny ones. And he answers the questions about the reindeer, out loud, to the fire.

"They are very well, thank you."

One special letter

Then Santa opened a small blue envelope. Inside was one sheet of paper, with a drawing of a house and an old lady waving from the window.

The letter said:

Dear Santa,

My name is Noor and I am seven. Next door lives Mrs. Hall. She is very old and she lives on her own. She does not have any children nearby. My wish is that she is not lonely at Christmas.

Love from Noor.

PS: I am going to make her a card.

Santa read the letter twice. Then he took off his glasses and wiped his eyes.

"Pip," he said softly. "Come and read this one."

Pip read it. "That's a very big wish," he said. "A wish you can't wrap."

"It is," said Santa. "And do you know what? I think Noor has already started making it come true."

The best kind of wish

That evening, Santa pinned Noor's drawing on the wall of the letter room, right above the fire, where everyone could see it.

"There are lots of lovely wishes in these letters," he told the elves. "But the ones I love most of all are the wishes for somebody else."

And somewhere, far away, in a little house with lights in the window, a girl called Noor was knocking on her neighbor's door with a homemade card in her hand.