My Letter to Santa This Year

My kids and I wrote letters to Santa this month. I know that seems like an odd activity for a household raising Jewish kids, but it was part of Macy's "Believe" campaign for the Make a Wish Foundation. For every letter to Santa that Macy's received, they donated a dollar to Make a Wish. They are still accepting letters online through Christmas Eve, so if you would like to participate, please do!

However, it got my older daughter and I thinking and we thought we could share the love even further. We wrote this letter to the editor together today and she is submitting it. Who can say whether it will actually be published, but I wanted to share it with all of you in case you'd like to use the idea with your own newspaper this week!

Dear Santa,  

I know you have a lot of toys and video games, but do you have any vaccines for polio and measles? Because so many kids need them. Only 1 in 5 children in the world get the immunizations they need for preventable diseases. Over 1.6 million kids will die before they are 5 years old from treatable and preventable illnesses. I work on these issues all year, asking Congresswoman Ann Wagner and Senators Blunt and McCaskill to sign onto legislation like the Reach Every Mother and Child Act (H.R. 3706 and S. 1911) and other bills that help babies and kids around the world, but I think they need a little help. You’re kind of an expert on overnight miracles, right? Could you deliver some of those medicines in your sleigh, too? That way we could skip all the hard work of distribution through the "cold chain," trying to keep the vaccines cold while delivering them on trucks and bicycles. Plus, you could give the day off to all the doctors and volunteers who give the vaccines!

No matter what religion you observe, I hope you consider writing your own letter to Santa, either to your newspaper or to Macy's, to help us spread the love for all children throughout the world.

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12/22/15  Happy to report that the St Louis Post-Dispatch printed the letter today. So, letters to Santa are now a legitimate tool for generating media!

P.S. Santa also reads my blog or his mail from Macy's! I did get that Dr. Who box set. I assume that children are also getting vaccines from him as well :)