Junior spreads joy to kids through her letters as “Santa”

Junior Lillian Schmid writes a letter to a kid acting as Santa to spread holiday cheer throughout Cedar Falls.

One of the staples of the holiday season for young children is writing a letter full of their Christmas wishes to Santa Claus. This year some students from CFHS had a chance to be on the receiving end of these letters and got to assume the persona of St. Nick himself.

Junior Lillian Schmid said she got started writing letters back because of the student senate. 

This year is the first that high schoolers are involved in the letter writing. “Usually, they have the folks at the Western Home do it all, but they have received so many letters that they needed help,” Schmid said. 

Schmid said that even if she wasn’t a part of the senate, she would still like to write letters back. She said, “I also do it because the letters make me laugh, and the thought of a kid reading them and thinking that it is actually Santa talking to them is so sick. To be a part of their Christmas magic is so cool.”

The letters that are sent to Santa are usually full of the Christmas wishes of children, which can sometimes be very funny according to Schmid.

“One kid asked if he could get flowers for his girlfriend from Santa and another one didn’t even write me any words. He just drew like 12 pictures,” Schmid said.

How they respond to each letter varies between each kid depending on what they wished for, but there is a usual theme that she said she sticks to. 

“Usually, if you say something about Christmas that is well known, as something about the elves or reindeer or Mrs. Claus, it sounds like Santa could have written it. Just trying to fit in some of the Christmas myths and telling them how excited I am to deliver their presents,” Schmid said.

Although she writes letters from Santa Claus, she has never sent a letter to Santa herself. “I actually never wrote a letter to Santa. I just kinda thought that Santa would know if I talked about it all the time because Santa is always watching.”

Science teacher Ashley Ridenour said her daughter, Avelyn, felt the same about letter writing. 

“She told me, ‘Mom! I don’t need to write a letter to Santa because if he knows when you’re sleeping and he knows when you’re awake. He knows what I want for Christmas. Duh,’” Ridenour said. 

Nevertheless, the letters sent to Santa this year have been numerous. 

Schmid said that writing letters back to these hopeful children is very fun and that she’d like to do it again next year.

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