First, go read my latest column at Literary Mama, on Miracle on 34th Street. Come on back when you’re done.

Done?

OK, so here’s the postscript:

I was in the kitchen baking some cookies yesterday (as I’ve been the last several days…) when the doorbell rang, and Tony answered it for a postal service volunteer. She’d read Ben’s letter to Santa and brought him a pogo stick! She left too quickly for us to really thank her properly, or send her off with a plate of cookies. The pure generosity of this just knocks me out, and the thought of kids who really might not get a Christmas present without such volunteers makes me tear up (Tony looked up the Toys for Tots website and made a quick donation).

Ben and I hadn’t talked about his pogo stick request since the day he mailed his letter to Santa, and I didn’t act on it; I didn’t really take it seriously. If you have read this blog, or know my boy, you know that Ben is not really a pogo stick kind of guy. But last night Ben made a careful plate of cookies, carrots (for the reindeer) and wrote a note for Santa: “Dear Santa, I hope your trip goes great tonight! PS, Did you bring my pogo stick? Signed, Benjamin James Grant.”

Of course, he was delighted with the gifts we gave him (his own set of measuring spoons; a compass; about a thousand Lego pieces) but his face when he recognized the big package under the tree this morning was pure joy, and he has not stopped marveling that Santa responded to his letter.

(Image from the book that started this all, Marla Frazee’s Santa Claus the World’s Number One Toy Expert)