Letters To Santa - 60 Second Stories

When you live in a military base you have access to every kind of music and talk radio. In the morning it was talk radio, in the afternoon it was classic country, after school the kids got their rock and roll and at night they played those great radio plays like 'The Shadow'.

That is, except at Christmas. Every holiday time of year we would get that fuzzy kind of reception that let you know that the program was coming from far far away - yes, that far away - the North Pole.

All the kids had written our letters to Santa and conveniently they had ended up at the radio station for Santa, Rudolfo (he was not Rudolf but his Italian cousin) and Binky the Elf could read them for us while doing their lame Christmas comedy bits.

Every kid would wait to hear their letter read or to get a taped message from a parent who may be off peacekeeping. Those were really touching and always made us cry. But it was very cool to have your letter read because they put alot into making it seem like the broadcast was really coming from the North Pole. Next day at school you could brag that you were for sure getting presents because the 'Fat Man' had gotten your request.

Then a few days before the big day, all the parents had dropped off a small gift to tide us over and Santa and Binky (who was always taller than he should have been for an Elf) would be dropped by helicopter and we would line up for our gifts.

It was the last time I can remember Christmas being a magical time of year.

(P.S. - when I live on Baffin Island there postal code was HOH OHO - HO HO HO and all the letters to Sanda from all over the world went there. They hired people and volunteers to answer those special ones starting usually in October. It was a cool government make-work project and showed how important the legend was to the far North)