Letter to Santa

Dear Santa,

This is my first letter to you. I don’t know much about you in this three years brief existence on earth. I only know this much that you look quite adorable in that red outfit of yours (like the one mom tried to make me wear last Christmas) and your white beard (yes, I know that. There was even one with the Santa Claus dress she bought last year. But I hate to wear beard. I am not very comfortable with it). Another thing I know about is is that you fulfill the wished of those children who have been nice all the year (and not naughty, of course). But how can one define what is nice and what is naughty, for the same act which seems nice to me, seems naughty to my mom. See, it all depends on the perspective. So which side will you take, Santa? Mine or my mom’s? Well, I don’t know.

This year though, I tried to be nice throughout the year, that too from my mom’s perspective. Like all three-year-olds, I love colours, perhaps you know that. Pastel crayons, plastic crayons, sketch pens, colou pencils, I have it all (though I lose one almost everyday, and that leaves no other choice for my mom but to buy one entire set again). I know she likes to see me painting. “You paint so well dear”. She nods approvingly whenever I am painting something on my colouring books, whether that painting makes sense or not. But paint the same picture on the wall, or the almirah, or the refrigerator (yes, I paint there, too), she will yell at me with so much reproach in her eyes. This year, though, I tried to confine my paintings mostly to colouring books and minimise the mural paintings (I succeeded to minimise it, though I could not stop it altogether. I just love walls painted with exciting colours and nice pictures, rather than the boring monocoloured wall).

This year, I started school for the first time in my lofe (I am a student of playgroup, for your kind information). Though I don’t quite love the idea of going to school, but I have to go there. It’s kind of compulsion. Otherwise, my mom creates a big fuss over me not going to school and watching cartoons on TV all day long. In this first year of my school life, though, I attended school for most of the time.

Thanks to my play school, I am learning my alphabets now. And sometimes, though just to make my mom happy, I try to write them on my exercise book and complete my home tasks, instead of playing with my toys or watching cartoons. See, how nice I am.

And oh, one last nice act of mine, I must mention here. I ate rice and vegetables on some days during this year (although serving papad or fried potato is compulsory for me to eat rice). I also tried to reduce my ice-cream intake (last summer, I caught cold by having excessive ice-creams and had a fever. It’s so distressing, you know).

Hope I have been nice enough. Now it’s your turn to be nice and gift me the toys that I wish.

With love and laughter,

Mainak.

P.S.: I am just learning my alphabets as I told you and am not knowledgeable enough to write an entire letter. So my mom wrote this letter on behalf of me. However, within a few years, when I’ll grow up a little bit and will be able to write letters on my own, I’ll write you you far better letters than this one that mom has written.

(This letter is my entry for the 'Letters to Santa" (LTS) contest conducted by Flipkart.)