Christmas is for kid's and Dad's.

Me with Santa-I clearly loved him.

I woke up at 4am Christmas morning, grabbed my flashlight from under my pillow and quietly climbed out of bed so as not to awake my sleeping parents. I had heard loud noises earlier and knew that Santa had made his delivery and so I walked into the living room to scope it out. I was happy to see a stack of new presents under the tree and to my surprise, a letter from Santa Claus addressed to me sitting on the dining room table

I quickly forgot about the presents and went straight for the letter, hoping The Big Man penned a secret message written for me to uncode. I took it back to my room and poured over his word's under my cover's while my parent's still slept.

The letter Santa wrote-I wish I kept the real thing.

I recognized my father's handwriting at Dear Yoko, despite his best efforts to disguise it with a few sloppy strokes of the pen. Deeply disappointed with my discovery, I decided to focus on my presents awating me and confront my parents about the doctored letter at the right time.

I decided the right time was while my Mom was preparing Christmas dinner and the house was filling up with cousins, aunts, uncles, nieces and nephews. I walked into the kitchen holding the letter and blurted out, "Who wrote the letter from Santa"? My mom, too busy to deliver the answer gently while cutting up the turkey, said, "Your father wrote the letter. Is that what you want to hear? He wrote it with his left hand.
He ate the cookies and drank the milk you left for Santa and the dog ate the carrots you left for the reindeer. He's done that every year. There is no Santa. You might as well know now."

I started to cry and said, "I just asked who wrote it.." My mom stopped carving the turkey long enough to give me a hug, wipe my tears and apologize for bursting my childhood bubble.

That was it. In a matter of seconds I went from being a kid who believed in Santa to a kid that didn't.
I was 7 years old.

I still left milk and cookies for my Dad every Christmas 'til I was 12.  He worked hard at putting a smile on my face and delivered toys until I hit puberty.  I became a pain in the ass after that and left him nothing.

I never did get my pool, I'll buy one for myself one day.

This year I left out milk and cookies for my Dad.

I miss him..

Love you all and Merry Christmas.

Yoko Sanchez
XXX