Dear Santa Claus......

10 Johnson's Road

Uppingham

Rutland

United Kingdom

The World

Dear Santa Claus

I know you select the children who are to receive presents from your "Naughty and Nice" book.  I am now six and a half years old and old enough to write my first letter to you.

I haven't been terribly good this year getting into all sorts of bother and probably more than I should have.  I must try better. Like when I ran into the room and bumped into mum when she was carrying a tray of eggs and they splattered all over the terracotta tiled floor and made it all slippy and sticky and yukky. It took her ages to scrub it up. She certainly was not very happy with me then.  I don't think I was very popular as I think she had planned on us having poached egg on toast for tea.  Or the occasion when she was making a cake in that big brown mixing bowl of hers and I knelt up on the stool and lost my balance and ended up knocking the bowl and the cake contents onto the floor and breaking the mixing bowl.  I certainly was not popular then.

My mum keeps calling me "mischief" and that "I am full of it".  I am ever so worried that as a result of mum being cross with me you will not visit me. That's what she keeps telling me anyway that if I am not a good little girl  you will not visit. 

Even when you turned your toys over during the summer and there was the loud clashing and banging I tried to be good but I don't think I am very good at it.  (Mum told me you were turning your toys over).  I don't like loud banging and clashing.  It frightens me especially when that bright light opens up in the sky. You being cross with me frightens me even more and it worries me.  I will try and be ever so ever so good between now and Christmas promise.  "Cross my heart and hope to die".  

Mum has had the Chimney Sweep in. She always does in the autumn before we need the fire on an all day basis.  We end up having to cover everything up  with white sheets to cover all the good things up as sometimes he makes so much mess.  I think she uses the white sheets to tell where the soot needs cleaning from.  Sometimes it is worse than others. 

The Chimney Sweep is known as Mr Snow and his  business is called "Snow White".  I do think that is a bit of a funny name for a Chimney Sweep.  However, I do go and stand outside waiting for his big black brush shoot up out of the chimney. Me and Ricky next door compete as to who sees it first.  That's supposed to be ever so lucky. I think Ricky still has his letter to do to you.  He is my "boy friend".

Anyway mum says it needs to be done and that I have to be a big girl and help her do things and once I have helped her I can then go and play in the street with him next door. Once the Sweep has been mum gives the room a good bottoming out and has me sat on the settee making strips of newspaper into firelighters and rolling them into balls.  She can keep an eye on me this way round and keep me occupied so that I am not getting into mischief and getting covered in smuts or doing anything else that I should not be.  

Mum has also told me that she has the chimney cleaned so you will not get soot on your lovely red fur edged suit and end up having to take it to the cleaners.

So if you can see your way to classing me as a good little girl this year, and come and pay me a visit I would be ever so ever grateful.

We have a big roof  for you to park the Reindeer on and on which you should be able to balance reasonably well on with the sleigh full of toys for other boys and girls who have been better behaved than me. I promise to leave you a mince pie and a sausage roll [if you decide to come and visit me]; Mum is a really good cook) and I will also leave some carrots for the Reindeer and a glass of Port for you after I have hung my stocking up on the mantel of the fire hearth. We have little hooks on which to hang them off.  My stocking is every so pretty and has snowflakes on and Mum and Dad have one too.  I wonder if they have been good?

I always get new jim jams on Christmas Eve (last year's ones were pink and white spots). When I have had a bath and I am nice and clean in my new togs wrapped up in my dressing gown in front of the fire with a mug of milk, Dad always reads to me.  It's the story called "The Night Before Christmas".  Have you heard of it? I do so love that story it always makes Christmas so magical for me. Once the story is over and I am all snuggled up and sleepy Dad scoops me up in his arms (I love being cuddled) and he carries me up the wooden stairs to Bedfordshire to my little bed, gives me a kiss goodnight and makes sure I am all covered up.

I do promise that I will go to sleep this year and not peek even though I so desperately want to see the Reindeer and hear the jingling of the sleigh bells and the thud of Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Comet, Vixen, Cupid, Comet, Donner and Blitzen and we must not forget Rudolph landing on the roof. Being good like that is not easy for me at all.  It does not come naturally.  Remember last Christmas it was the early hours before I nodded off to sleep and I waited and waited to see you and missed you yet again.  My eyes just closed for a moment honest.   I could not understand it but later in the day Dad was a bit grumpy like he is when he has hardly any sleep but I know he and mum went to bed shortly after me - well I think they did. 

Luckily I do not need much sleep and I woke reasonably early to find that my pillowcase at the bottom of my bed was full of brightly coloured presents. So I had been good.  Yippee. I had been told to wait in bed until Mum came and got me up and then I could go and open any presents on mum and dad's bed.  I waited and waited for them to come and fetch me and my fingers were itching to open the presents at the foot of my bed.  But I was good and waited and waited and then mum came through.  Later on after dinner Dad fell asleep in front of the fire and he snored!

However this year mum has made sure that the chimney is now spotless so you should be able to visit quickly and easily when all is quiet and peaceful.  Hopefully the fire will have died out by then so you don't get a burnt bum!

Anyway I nearly forgot the reason for me writing to you today.  Mum asked me to write a list of some of the things that I would like for Christmas this year.  There is only one thing that I would like for myself and that is that very pretty china doll in the local shop.  She has golden curls and a red coat with a little hand muff.  She is so ever so ever beautiful and if I was lucky enough to receive her I really promise to try and be a good girl for a whole year. 

However I would like some nice things for my mum and Dad.  Mum has been eyeing up that pretty lace blouse with the high collar, and Dad has been looking at some brown furry slippers.  His others have gone threadbare so he does need new ones and a block of Cadburys Dairy milk.  Its his favourite. I would be so happy if they could receive a present each even if you do not think that I have been good enough to have such an expensive present as the china doll.  Mummy and Daddy are so ever so ever so good to me.

Oh and we must not forget the real reason for Christmas the birthday of Jesus and the blessings of family.  That's what they have told me at Sunday School that is the most important thing celebrating his birthday.

Mum has told me that once my letter is finished and that it has been signed and sealed with a big kiss on from me that we are to let the draught from the fire hopefully take the letter up to you.  She has told me that this is your postbox. Seems a strange postbox to me.  Not like the one down the street which is bright poppy red.  If I have been good the letter will come straight up to you and the Elves in the North Pole but if it burns then I have been a very naughty little girl and will be very disappointed.  That's what mum's told me.

Mum is waiting for me to finish this so I had better get a wriggle on. 

With love and kisses.

Yours ever so sincerely

Mischief

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