Dear Santa

As far back as I can remember when I was a child, my dad made a point to remind my sisters and me every year on Christmas Eve that Santa liked to have beer left out for him at some houses instead of milk.  I remember asking Dad if Santa would mind if the beer was hot by the time he got to our house and Dad said, no, any beer is good beer, even a hot one.  

Fast-forward a couple of decades later when I told my own children that Santa liked beer instead of milk.  Things went according to my plan until my older daughter was asked to write a letter to Santa as an assignment in her first grade class.  The letter started out like most of them do: "Dear Santa,  Hi! How are you?"  It was written in very neat handwriting with good spacing and sizing of the letters, and I’m sure the teacher was very impressed, until she got to the more unique part where my daughter wrote, “My mom says you like behr more than milk do you? Even hot?”

My daughter finished the letter with her list of a few things she wanted Santa to bring her that year and a “Thank you!” and then signed her name at the bottom of the page.  She added a couple of little drawings out to the side which she often did in those days; I doubt that distracted the teacher from the Mom ♥ Beer message in the body of the letter though.  The letter was mounted on a piece of construction paper and taped to the classroom wall for all to see at the PTA Open House that week.  I remember telling my dad about it on the phone the next day and hearing him laugh through the phone as if it were the world’s funniest joke.   “It’s like a treat you gave to yourself years later,” I told him, to which he laughed even harder.