I don’t know about you, but when I was a kid, one of the things that I looked forward to doing was writing letters to Santa. I loved writing out what I wanted and then sending it to Santa, waiting and hoping that he would give me what I wanted.
I never understood why my parents never knew what I wanted that was in that letter. For me, I always thought that they weren’t paying attention, that they didn’t talk to Santa, even though they claimed that they did.
Over the course of my life, I have watched a lot of Christmas movies, because Christmas was never a fun time for me. It was a time that I hated. But Christmas movies show the joy that I missed out on and give me hope. However, I don’t always want to live in a fantasy world, so I decided to watch Dear Santa.
If you aren’t familiar with Dear Santa, the documentary shows us inside the Dear Santa program operated by the USPS.
I am a huge fan of the USPS, as long as I don’t have to set food in one. But I LOVE a good package and I love a good letter. And I personally think one of the most important things that the postal services does is their Operation Santa program. If you write a letter to Santa, using his official address – 123 Elf Road, North Pole, 88888 – the mail carrier will make sure that it gets to Santa.
The program was conceived in 1912, by the then Postmaster General authorized the opening of letters that kids send to the North Pole. The postal service got charities and businesses involved, making sure that kids letters get to Santa and that when possible their wishes were answered.
The issue with this documentary wasn’t that the program was bad, it’s that it didn’t hit the emotional mark that it could have made for people. It would have felt better to me – if we would have had a little bit more history on the program, what it does and how it changes lives.
The documentary was obviously emotional and obviously there are tear jerking scenes. But the tear jerking scenes felt more like I was watching a news story or a Hallmark movie. It was just not what I needed ti to be and it’s hard for me to verbalize the reasons why.
But I also feel like it wasn’t given the publicity that it needed to have and I am sorry for that because the possibilities are endless.
Dear Santa is out now.