By Jenn Watt
Published Dec. 24 2018
One of my favourite parts of putting together the annual Season’s Greetings section of the paper is reading the kids’ letters. Over the past couple of weeks I’ve been reading a lot of Christmas Hanukkah and holiday submissions as our staff assembled several special sections in Bancroft Haliburton and Minden. We collected feature stories and photos of Santa making appearances around the county along with children’s art short stories poetry and letters to St. Nick himself.
The best part of the students’ submissions by far is their creative outside-the-box thinking when writing about the most magical time of year. You can’t help but smile when you read what they have to say.
An Archie Stouffer Elementary School class was asked to list the steps to stay on Santa’s nice list. One student wisely recommended helping the teacher out and cheering her up: “All you have to do if you have chocolate is give her the chocolate but first eat most of the chocolate.”
Another student said you need to leave Santa milk because “he likes to chug the milk.” That sounds about right.
One student in Bancroft told Santa that it’s nice to live in Bancroft “but sometimes I wish I had a plane ticket to New York.”
Another Bancroft student asked for 60 more cats along with about a million “beanie boos.”
A child named Gracie kindly inquired whether Santa had any allergies before she committed to leaving him food.
And then there are those who give comprehensive wish lists. “I’d also like a fish or a hamster earplugs some world peace and more homework” wrote one student in Bancroft. (The writer explained neither the homework request nor the earplugs.)
At ASES one class was asked to design a suit for Santa that would make his life better. The kids came up with creative solutions to all of his problems from fireproofing the fabric to help him navigate hot chimneys to invisibility cloaks to sneak by nosy children.
A student named Beth had this thoughtful solution to what must be a workplace hazard for the Man in Red: “he needs to get two pockets built on his coat. One is called the dissolver and it eats the cookies he does not like so the kids do not get upset if he does not eat the cookies” she wrote. “The [second] pocket is called the keeper. It keeps the cookies he likes warm.”
I think most of us could use those two pockets when we attend holiday events through our travels. I hope Beth keeps working on the prototype for that suit.
Thank you for reading the pages of the Haliburton Echo this year and helping us report on this community we all love. Wishing you a safe and restful holiday. We will be taking next week off. Our next Echo will arrive on newsstands Tuesday Jan. 8.
