A Letter from Santa Claus

by Mark Twain

Palace of Saint Nicholas in the Moon
Christmas Morning
                  My Dear Susy Clemens,
I have received and read all the letters which you and your little

sister have written me . . . . I can read your and your baby

sister’s jagged and fantastic marks without any trouble at all. But

I had trouble with those letters which you dictated through your

mother and the nurses, for I am a foreigner and cannot read English

writing well. You will find that I made no mistakes about the things

which you and the baby ordered in your own letters–I went down your

chimney at midnight when you were asleep and delivered them all

myself–and kissed both of you, too . . . . But . . . there

were . . . one or two small orders which I could not fill because we

ran out of stock . . . .