Santa's Diary - January 1, 2024

For Santa's Diary I am building on some notes I compiled before. I'm using the 2024 calendar for the dates.

Here's the first entry:

January 1

Happy New Year!

 

For this new year, I am starting something I’ve never done before:  A diary.

 

I am doing this because of a kind gift from a young lady.

 

Every year when I stop in people’s homes to deliver gifts, people leave me wonderful treats.

 

There is almost always something to eat and drink. Folks most often leave me milk and cookies. But sometimes the drinks are hot chocolate, eggnog, a soft drink, coffee, tea, and more. And as for things to eat? Besides cookies there are sometimes brownies, cupcakes, candy, cakes, pies, apples, oranges, even vegetables.

 

And, of course, there are often carrots left out for the reindeer. Sometimes I eat some of the carrots too!

 

I am grateful for all of those treats. Thank you.

 

But sometimes, people leave me other gifts. Pictures drawn by wonderful young artists. Knitted socks, scarves, and sweaters. Boxes of chocolate to bring home to Mrs. Claus. Bottles of various beverages. Books. Calendars. And so many more delightful presents.

 

I am grateful for all of those as well.

 

But this past Christmas a young lady named Angela left me something different.

 

Next to the cookies – delicious chocolate chip cookies – and milk, was a small wrapped package. The label said, “To Santa, from Angela.”

 

I did not open it just then. Deliveries to make!  

 

I sat down the day after Christmas to open wrapped packages left for me, and then I came to Angela’s.

 

Inside was a book with blank pages, and a note.

 

Dear Santa;

 

Thank you for the diary you left me last year. I have written in it every day. I thought you would like one, too.

 

Love,

Angela

 

My dear wife has suggested writing about my daily life and my story many a time – including the week before Christmas when I sat down for a break from last-minute readying for the trip.

“People should know all that you do,” she said. “They think you just work at Christmas, and then spend the rest of the year sitting around eating cookies.”

Ho! She is right about eating cookies year round.

But being Santa is a lot of work.

Why just today I had to visit the reindeer stables with the veterinarian elf (Cupid has a sore tooth), fix a leaky pipe in the candy shop, shovel the walk in front of the home where Mrs. Claus and I live, and begin reading several hundred letters.

 

And that was all before breakfast.

By the way, I ate a bowl of oatmeal for breakfast. It takes me a couple of weeks to get over all the cookies I ate at Christmas.

So I will use this lovely diary to keep a record of the next year, and to think back on the past.

Thank you, Angela.

 

Ah, the noon bell. Time for lunch.

 

I might even have a cookie!

Pax et bonum