For the past several days Bernice Smith, Alexius White, Tiffany and I have been typing in the letters to Santa Claus that are inside today’s edition.

Parents, please let your children know that our delivery elf picked up his bundle of newspapers early this morning and headed out to run his paper route.

Santa has already called David Snow this morning to complement him on today’s edition – so we know the Big Red Man got his newspaper.

I remember writing letters to Santa when I was a child. I don’t particularly remember what I asked for but I do remember one in particular because he wrote back.

I got a nice thank you letter in the mail once.

It was far from the guarantee of Christmas riches I hoped for but it was a handwritten “howdy” from the man who could potentially hand-deliver my Nintendo.

In reading through the letters as I typed them in, I was surprised at the number of children who asked for elves. These kids are a lot smarter than I was at their age.

Why ask for a few toy when you can get an elf that can make you every toy you want?

I was also surprised at how many children wanted to ride with Santa; also another good idea I overlooked in my correspondence with him.

I hope each of you readers enjoy reading the letters inside today’s edition.

Merry Christmas to Marengo County’s little letter writers and good luck.

If any of you get that elf you asked for, please let me know.

I’d like to get a picture of him.

– Jason Cannon