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The North Country Boy’s Letter

by George Vukelich

Dear Santa,

Yup, this was the year my folks had another,

so I’m writing you now for my new baby brother;

he looks like a puppy, all curled up and funny,

he can’t blow his nose and it’s always real runny.

It’s hard to know what he could use,

he’s so little he doesn’t wear shoes.

He’s just too tiny for skates or for skis –

If we took him ice fishing, he’d likely just freeze.

Pa says one day I can teach him to shoot

my shotgun for Canadas and mallard and coot.

Ma says plenty of time for the guns and the shells;

she even looks happy when he wets and he yells.

Gramps holds him too and gets him to coo –

When they get talking, you can’t tell who’s who.

It’s really a strange kind of Christmas this year;

Pa says it’s because I’m getting right near

to being a grownup.

Pa says you are really right near it

when you understand that the Christmas spirit

is wanting good things, not for yourself but others.

Brothers and sisters, father and mothers.

Pa say you get to love the whole world more

and that’s what Christmas is really for.

He says Santa lives in the heart and the head –

He says you’re like Grandma, alive and yet dead.

Grandpa said that was right and true

and yet said I should write to you.

Anyway, whatever present you picked out for me.

Mark it for our baby when you come to our tree.

*published in Wisconsin Tales and Trails – Winter 1964 in North Country Notebook column.