9 years and below
A letter to Santa Claus
Dear Santa Claus,
How are you? I know that you’re busy making toys for children all over the world.
Thank you for the gifts that you gave me! It was a lot of fun playing with them and I loved the toys.
I have tried being good this year because this Christmas I want a Monopoly game board. I want to have the one with the chance and community chest cards but not the one with the CD.
Is my friend on your Good List Santa? If she isn’t, it must be due to eating too much do-nuts!
Please eat the biscuits that I will leave under the Christmas tree and give the carrots to Rudolph. Please tell Rudolph to share the carrots with his reindeer friends.
I wish you, Mrs. Claus, the elves and the reindeer a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!
Love Vethmi Nimnara Senanayake
Vethmi Senanayake (8 years)
Musaeus College
10 – 12 years
How I celebrate Christmas
Christmas to me is a celebration which includes spending time with my family. Spending time with my family is very important to me. We spend the day baking cookies, making fudge and preparing a big Christmas dinner. Decorating for Christmas is so much fun. My father always draws a new background scenery for the Nativity scene. Stockings come first and we fill these with small gifts. The presents are next. We give each other gifts in the morning around the tree. The traditional Christmas lunch is a grand feast, with family and friends and they range from delicious Christmas fruitcake to chocolate cookies and mince pies. My most beautiful Christmas tradition is the Midnight Mass. Church starts their services with carol singing. We all get dressed up in our best attire and after the service we wish everybody ‘Merry Christmas’. After church, we visit friends and share fruitcake and wine.
Tamara Chand (10 years)
Belvoir International
13 – 15 years
Christmas Short Story
‘Little Emily Rose’s astonishing Christmas’
‘Twas the night before Christmas – Christmas Eve. Emily Rose was fast asleep. Oh what a strange girl she was. She didn’t believe in Santa Claus, not even one tiny bit. Her friends had all thought about what they wanted from Santa and had already written him letters and posted them to the North Pole.
But only little Emily didn’t do anything of that sort. She couldn’t care less about Santa, so she went to bed.
‘Ding! Ding! Ding!’ said her alarm clock. Emily rubbed her eyes and woke up. “Ah, what time is it?” she asked herself and looked at the alarm clock. 12 a.m. She read. “Oh geez, it’s still midnight,” she said sarcastically. She decided to get a drink of water so she climbed out of bed and wore her teddy-bear slippers. She hoped her parents were still asleep or else they would scold her for waking up in the middle of the night. She walked downstairs and what was that she saw! There was a trail of sparkling gold glitter. “What? I don’t remember playing with glitter,” she said and followed the glitter trail towards the window.
She gasped when she looked out. There was a sleigh parked outside and inside it were a zillion gifts, perhaps. And there were reindeer at the front of the sleigh. They all had glittery bells tied around their necks! “No way… That can’t be possible! Am I dreaming?” she said while pinching her arm. “Ouch, that hurt!” She wasn’t dreaming. She looked over at their lovely Christmas tree and she could have sworn there wasn’t a big gift wrapped in red and green paper there yesterday! She went over towards the tree and looked at the tag dangling from the gift box.
To: Emily Rose
From: The one and only Santa Claus
She had a small grin on her face. Suddenly she heard the sound of sleigh bells ringing. She ran towards the window, but the sleigh was gone.
“This is definitely the best Christmas ever,” said little Emily Rose with a smile.
Sonal Jayasinghe (13 years)
Ananda College
