Growing up, my family was never the most festive family on the block.

For Christmas, we never hung up lights outdoors because my dad believed that it was too much work, too expensive and too dangerous. We rarely made Christmas cookies because, in the words of my mother, “the ones from the store taste just as good.” And I’ve never been caroling because my parents thought it was something that people only did in movies. (As an adult, I realize they were right on all accounts.)

While we might not have gone all out like some of my friend’s families, we still managed to hit the highlights of the season: putting up the tree, watching “A Christmas Story” and writing letters to Santa.

Writing letters to Santa was always a highlight of the season for me. My parents would wrangle my sister and me, ply us with hot chocolate and have us put to paper all of the things we were hoping for that season. Then, once we had sealed our envelopes, we would take our letters to the mall and place them inside a unique, red mailbox in the food court, hoping against hope that Santa would read our letters and bring me a pony or make us a princess or whatever outlandish thing we had asked for that year.

Those memories are some I will never forget. 

My days of writing to Santa may be long over, but this year, I’m still asking the man in red for just one thing: to get YOUR letters to Santa.

At Leader Publications this year, we are collecting children’s letters to Santa. If you send your child’s letter (or picture if they are too small to write!) to Leader Publications, we will publish it in their respective community newspapers.

We would love to share in their joy of the Christmas holiday and to hear what they are hoping for this Christmas.

If you are interested in participating, send your letters or pictures with your child’s first name, age and city of residence to Leader Publications Newsroom, 217 N. Fourth St., Niles MI 49120. You can also email us your submissions to news@leaderpub.com.

We can’t wait to hear from you!