Dear Santa

Edie's letter to Santa is killing me with cuteness. Her words run from line to line without dashes, and no matter how many times I suggest that she put a little more space between words, she loves for them to all run together into one giant stream of consciousness (or one epic hashtag). That said, with very few exceptions, she wrote this entire letter and spelled everything without any help. The exceptions are "Dear Santa Claus", which I wrote on a separate piece of paper for her to copy (she doesn't like me hovering and telling her each letter one at a time - I'm told it's "VERY ANNOYING"), and I suggested she add an "e" to the end of the word "like", at which point I was summarily dismissed and she wrote the rest completely by herself while I was in a separate room wrapping presents. I thought this would be almost impossible to decipher but friends last night were able to figure out a good chunk of it without much help. I'll de-code it below the photo for those interested.

Dear Santa (giant comma) Claus, I woud like stompeez slipprs, an Elsa stufee (what we call stuffed animals) rappeng papr andb and sum suprisis Iv ban a good girl. 

ho! ho! ho! Marry Crismis from Edie Bee Culevr

Seriously. 

I can't believe how determined this kid is sometimes. I really had my heart set on a perfectly worded letter that I recited to her letter by letter so it would basically look like a grown up wrote it in cute, kid handwriting. But she had such different ideas and I'm so glad I turned the control freak in me off (it wasn't easy) and just let her do this because, well maybe I don't really have to say why. I actually have no idea if this is advanced for her age, but to me, it feels like she just wrote a novel I'm so proud. 

Sadly, I'm pretty unimpressed with the actual items on the wish list. Stompeez slippers are these cheap made-in-China garbage that Santa sucked up and bought despite Jeff's (accurate) protests. And the Elsa stuffed animal is something that I think one of her aunts purchased to give her, so Santa isn't going to deliver on that one. I'm unclear if she wants a roll of wrapping paper, wants her presents wrapped in wrapping paper or if she just saw the roll of wrapping paper on the ground while writing the letter and threw it in for fun, but regardless she'll be getting some form of wrapping paper. I probably should have made her write the Santa letter earlier. But in my defense, Edie does things like this when SHE wants to and not sooner. As Jeff says, I think our issue with this kid is not going to be intelligence, but rather motivation. I'd asked her so many times earlier in the season about a letter to Santa and she shut me down every time. Until yesterday. SOO… sum suprisis it is!