The kids hold nothing back. If you can't trust Santa Claus, who can you trust?
There are no secrets when you're writing him. No embarrassment. No wish too big or too small. You can level with Santa. He knows who you are.
So the 17 students in Steven Meyer's second-grade class at Newcastle Elementary School in Reseda - along with hundreds of other kids in more than 90 classrooms in San Fernando Valley schools who mailed Santa a letter last week - let it all hang out.
If you think what many of them want for Christmas this year is something you can buy in a store or charge on your credit card, you're wrong.
These kids want a lot more than that. They want Santa to be especially nice to all the kids who lost so much in Hurricane Katrina. They want him to keep our soldiers safe in Iraq.
``One student in my class asked Santa to help make sure there were no more poor children in the world,'' Meyer said.
Now, where are you going to find a better Christmas present than that?
The letters from all the 70 second-graders at Newcastle, and more than 10,000 others from kids in Glendale, Pasadena, Ventura, Santa Barbara, the San Fernando and Conejo valleys, and a wide area stretching across the Mojave Desert to Mammoth Lakes will wind up on the desk of Stacia Crane, Santa's personal mail carrier.
Eleven months out of the year, Crane is a U.S. Postal Service consumer affairs representative at the Santa Clarita postal annex, but not in December. In December, she's Santa's right-hand woman.
She's been that for the past 17 years, ever since a teacher at Bassett Street Elementary School in Van Nuys told her about a literacy program the teachers were starting, and how they wanted to encourage their kids to write letters.
The one letter they all wanted to write was to Santa at the North Pole. Smart kids. The teachers just wanted to make sure that the letters would get answered.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KD3EAJ6FUDQ
Crane put the word out to all employees in the post office: When you get a letter addressed to Santa Claus, bring it to me. I'll answer it. Little did she know what she was starting.
``Pretty soon, the Bassett Street principal talked to the Cohassett Street principal, who talked to other principals about the program, and it got way out of hand,'' Crane says, laughing.
Santa's right-hand woman was deluged with hundreds more letters the second year, thousands more by the third and fourth years. Santa's right- hand woman was getting writer's cramp.
``I hollered for help from other postal employees at first, then the community at large,'' Crane says. ``Everyone said sure, they'd help Santa answer every last letter.''
What Crane didn't see coming were the 300 or so letters Santa gets every year that tear your heart out.
The letters from kids not wanting anything for themselves, but for their mommy because she's been so lonely since daddy left.
From the kids wanting something for their baby brothers and sisters who won't be getting any presents this year because no matter how hard mommy and daddy work, there doesn't seem to be enough money for things like that.
For the little boy telling Santa his sister and brother sure could use some clothes, especially a new jacket for school. If that was asking too much, just some food would do.
Santa's right-hand woman put those letters in a special priority pile, and started looking for more help. It was one thing asking friends and co- workers to write a letter to a child from Santa; it was another asking them to reach into their pockets to buy them special gifts and clothing.
Looking http://www.ezsantaletters.com/catalog/Good_Naughty_List_Certificates-9-1.html Stacia Crane reads Christmas letters addressed to Santa Claus in her cubicle at the Santa Clarita postal annex.
Tina Burch/Staff Photographer
