A spy kit for spying. 

A real monster truck. 

A hockey stick. 

A make-up kit.

A remote-control airplane.

An Alexa of his very own so he doesn’t have to sneak into his big sister’s room and ask her Alexa to answer all the questions that pop into a little boy’s mind during the day. 

Perched on a folding chair in the Delaware Youth Center, camera in hand to capture the memories, I had a front row seat this past Saturday as Callicoon area kids poured out their hearts’ desires to the big guy from the North Pole. I watched personalities shift in front of my eyes - kids whose outsized personalities often make me laugh suddenly becoming shy, awed by the chance to have an audience with the one and only Santa Claus. 

Others realized this was their one and only chance to spell out some rather specific requirements for a holiday gift. 

We had criers and runners, kids who would sit next to Santa but only if Santa agreed to remain on one side of the bench while they sat at the other, and kids who needed Grandma or Mom to join them before they’d say hi to Saint Nick. 

And then there were the ones who marched right up, got comfortable on the bench like they were settling in for story time, and commenced negotiations with the kind of confidence usually reserved for seasoned business executives.

A little boy I’ve seen shyly cuddle up to Santa over the years summoned his courage to lay it all out on the line this year: He’d like seven Nerf guns, please. 

Seven. 

Not five. 

Not six. 

Seven exactly. 

Just in case Santa forgot, this sweetie had brought along a special envelope for Santa. Inside was an advertisement, complete with a QR code.

I've been photographing Santa visits for years now, and every single time I'm struck by how much these few minutes mean. Not just to the kids, but to the parents and grandparents standing beside me, phones out, trying to capture that perfect shot while also just drinking in the moment.

These are the years when magic is still real, when a man in a red suit knows everything, when the impossible feels perfectly possible if you just believe hard enough.

That little boy with his seven Nerf guns and his QR code? He's doing what we all should do more often: asking for exactly what we want, with specificity and hope, believing that someone out there is listening and might just make it happen.

The magic isn't really in the gifts but in the asking. 

It's in that moment when a shy kid finds their voice, when a skeptical older sibling decides to play along one more year, when a toddler stops crying long enough to notice Santa's kind eyes and slips out a palm for a high five. 

It's in a community coming together on a Saturday morning, volunteers helping kids decorating cupcakes and gingerbread people and parents catching up while waiting in line, everyone participating in this collective act of wonder.

Soon enough these kids will be too old for Santa visits, too cool for the whole thing. But for now, they're still young enough to believe, brave enough to ask, and excited enough to stay up all night waiting.

Dear Santa, all I want for Christmas is just a little bit more of this magic in our lives.