The Santa Solution

Unfortunately, our little Sugar does not have the most warm feelings toward Santa Claus. In fact, last year she asked me if he could just leave any presents on the porch, and that I really shouldn't let him inside. So, OK. Some of this is my fault. When she was 18 months old we MADE her sit on his lap to get a picture and she pretty much cried the whole time.

See what I mean? Pretty traumatic... I know!

I've thought this problem would be something we dealt with for a long time: No Santa visits! No WAY and NO Thanks. But, I underestimated my little darling. (Of course!! I never seem to give her enough credit.) What happened? Well, for the past few weeks now she has been telling me that it's OK if she doesn't see or talk to Santa because she knows Sam!

And who is Sam? Sam lives in our neighborhood. And Sugar is 100% certain he is Santa's little brother. So I had to ask her, why would she think that? This took a little probing to get all the details from her, but here they are:

#1) Sam, and his wife Linda, plan and put on all our Ward parties, including the Christmas Party, a quality Santa's brother would be excellent at!

#2)Sam has lots of silver hair and matching whiskers.... but he's NOT Santa because, "he's too young and too skinny" she says.

#3)How could Santa possibly know if Sugar has been naughty or nice all year? Because his brother, Sam, lives close by and must be reporting in on a regular basis.

#4) Sam and Linda's house is usually the first in the neighborhood to be decorated and lit-up as soon as Thanksgiving is over.

#5)Sam and Santa both start with the letter "S", so they must be brothers.

And guess what? Sam is not a scary guy at all! In fact, he's really nice and friendly, too. He does have a big dog, but the dog's not too bad when the barking stops! And this just works out perfectly because Sam could probably deliver a message to Santa for her.... then she wouldn't have to see the 'Man in Red', but he'd still get the message.

So, here's her letter, to Santa... especially delivered by his little brother, OUR neighbor, Sam!

Bless your heart, Sam, for being the kind of person who would easily fit into the family of "The Most Charitable and Giving Man of the Season". It's not hard to see the similarities! Sugar just may be right about this!