Posted November 11, 2009

When the call came in for magazine subscriptions to support the Big Brothers - Big Sisters of Chicago I deferred on the magazines, but inquired if maybe they might possibly . . .

It turned out they DID need a Santa and they DID need a source of toys because their old source was no longer providing for them that year. Funny how that worked out.

So I got to be Santa again, and once a year I bellow out my best Ho Ho Hos, and sit a few hundred kids on my lap who tell me what they want and promise to leave Santa cookies and milk. I hope to impart a few words of warm encouragement and perhaps reinforce the littler ones' belief in the magic of Santa and make the older ones who no longer believe maybe believe just a little bit, once more.  

 

 

Using a patented, top secret technique, Santa recognizes each of the hundreds of children, warmly and enthusiastically addressing each by name. They are always amazed, but of course Santa would know each of them, and all their sisters and brothers as well, wouldn’t he? That little bit of knowledge that Santa has of each of them, that he knows and recognizes them all, makes even the older kids wonder - if only a little, could it be? Or so I hope.

The world can use a little more magic, and that warm dose of Santa and flying reindeer and fitting down chimneys, even when you live in a tenemant apartment with no chimney at all, brings a spark to the eye of young and old alike.

If I still believe in Santa and hope to encourage that in others, I hope you will understand. I am just trying to keep the magic alive, particularly for the children from Chicago's south and west side whose lives might not otherwise be all that magical.

It is an honor and a pleasure to be associated with the Big Brothers - Big Sisters of Chicagoland each year for 21 years and counting.

  

 

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