Everyone wrote one once. Dear Santa, I have been good, please bring me a bike. Then you turned eleven and found out, and the letters stopped, and the only people who still write them are seven.
This post is about writing one more, as an adult, and giving it to someone. Not as a joke, or not only as a joke: the grown-up letter to Santa is the most honest Christmas message there is, because it borrows the one voice that never learned to hedge. A seven-year-old doesn't write "I just wanted to say". A seven-year-old writes please.
Below: how the letter works, a three-line formula, forty letters to steal from (mum, dad, both parents, a partner, a best friend, a sister or brother, grandparents, your own child, your team, and anyone), funny ones, when to send, and the card that plays your letter as a short film and delivers it on Christmas morning.
Why a letter to Santa works on adults
Three reasons, and they are all about voice.
It can ask. Adults say "I hope you get some rest this year". A child says "Please give my mum a whole day of rest." The second one is a request, to someone who is supposed to be able to grant it, and that is what makes it land. The reader hears what you actually want for them, said plainly.
It can be unselfish without being smug. "I don't want anything for me this year" sounds pious from an adult. From a seven-year-old it sounds like the biggest thing a person can give up. The reader knows that the seven-year-old is you, and that you still mean it.
It has a built-in reveal. You sign it with your name and your age then. The reader realises, a beat late, who wrote it and when they started wanting this. That is the moment the card is for.
The three-line formula
Every letter below follows this. Write yours the same way.
- What you don't want. "I don't want any toys this year." One sentence. It clears the table.
- What you want for them. One specific thing you have seen them need. Not "happiness": a day off, a back that stops hurting, someone who stays, a win at cards. The specific thing is the whole letter.
- How long you've wanted it. Hidden in the signature: your name, and your age then. "— Aanya, age 7." Or said outright on the last line: "I've been asking since I was seven."
Rules a child would keep: short sentences, no adjectives in a row, one wish, and a please.
Letters for mum
Dear Santa, I don't want any toys this year. Please give my mum a whole day of rest, and make her laugh the way she laughs when she thinks nobody is watching. — age 7
Dear Santa, my mum makes Christmas for everybody and then sits down last. Please make one Christmas where she sits down first. I will do the dishes. All of them. — age 8
Dear Santa, please don't bring me the bike. Bring my mum a morning where nobody says "Mum?" before ten. I can make my own toast. — age 7
Dear Santa, my mum says she doesn't need anything. She is lying, but in the nice way. Please bring her the thing she won't ask for. You'll know it. — age 9
Dear Santa, I want my mum to have a Christmas like the ones she gives us. I don't know how to make one yet. Please help. — age 7
Letters for dad
Dear Santa, please don't bring me anything. Bring my dad home early, make his back stop hurting, and let him win at cards for once. — age 7
Dear Santa, my dad says Christmas is for the kids. Please tell him it is for him too. Also a nap that nobody interrupts. — age 8
Dear Santa, my dad fixes everything in our house. Please bring him one day where nothing is broken, including him. — age 7
Dear Santa, my dad pretends he doesn't want presents and then is very happy with socks. Please bring him something better than socks. He will say it's too much. Bring it anyway. — age 9
Dear Santa, please give my dad the remote and the good chair and let him fall asleep in it with the lights on. That is his favourite thing. — age 7
Letters for both parents
Dear Santa, I don't want anything this year. Please give my parents one evening with no washing-up and no worrying about us. They can have my stocking. — age 7
Dear Santa, my mum and dad are tired in a way that sleeping doesn't fix. Please bring the other kind of rest. I don't know its name. — age 8
Dear Santa, please make my parents laugh at the same thing at the same time, like in the photos from before I was born. — age 7
Dear Santa, my parents gave me every Christmas I have. Please give them one back. I'll help carry it. — age 9
Letters for a partner
Dear Santa, I don't know them yet. But please send me someone who stays. Someone who laughs at my jokes and holds my hand when it's cold. — age 7
Dear Santa, I've been asking you for the same thing since I was seven: a person who comes back. You took your time. Then you sent them. This year, please let them have the Christmas they give me. — age 7, still
Dear Santa, please don't bring me anything. Bring the person I love one whole day where nothing goes wrong and they don't have to fix it. — age 8
Dear Santa, I have been good, mostly. Please make the person next to me on the sofa stay there next year, and the year after. I'll share the blanket. — age 7
Dear Santa, they think I don't notice how much they do. Please let me notice louder. And bring them the thing they keep not buying for themselves. — age 9
Letters for a best friend
Dear Santa, I don't want toys. I want a friend who stays even when I'm weird. The kind you keep forever. — age 7
Dear Santa, you sent me a friend once. Best delivery ever. This year please bring them the thing they keep saying they don't need. — age 7, still
Dear Santa, my best friend is far away this Christmas. Please make the distance smaller, or the phone calls longer. Either works. — age 8
Dear Santa, please give my best friend one Christmas with no drama. They've had enough for a lifetime. I'll take the drama. I'm good at it. — age 9
Dear Santa, somewhere between the bad ideas and the better ones, this person became the one I call first. Please make sure they always pick up. — age 7
Letters for a sister or brother
Dear Santa, I don't want anything. Please bring my sister the thing I broke, but new, and don't tell her it was me. — age 7
Dear Santa, my brother and I fought over everything and shared everything anyway. Please bring him a Christmas with nothing to fight over and me to share it with. — age 8
Dear Santa, my sister is the only person who remembers the same house I do. Please keep her. That's all. — age 7
Dear Santa, please bring my brother a win. Any kind. He's due. — age 9
Letters for grandparents
Dear Santa, I don't want any toys. Please bring my grandma more Christmases. As many as you have. — age 7
Dear Santa, my grandad tells the same story every Christmas and we all pretend it's new. Please let him tell it for a long time. — age 8
Dear Santa, please make my grandparents' house smell like it does at Christmas all year, and let me be in it. — age 7
Dear Santa, my grandma says she has everything she needs. Please bring her the thing she means, which is us, early and for longer. — age 9
Letters for your son or daughter
Dear Santa, I don't want anything for me. Please let my child keep believing in you for one more year. I'm not ready for them to stop. — age 7, a long time ago
Dear Santa, please bring my daughter the Christmas I had when I was small, and let her remember it when she's big. — age 7, then
Dear Santa, my son thinks I know everything. Please let that last until he's old enough for it to be funny. — age 8, once
Dear Santa, I wrote you letters once, in this same house. Please read this one to my kid in the voice you used for mine. — age 7, 1998
Letters for your team
Dear Santa, I want to work with people who are kind on Mondays too, who share the credit and the biscuits, and who make the hard days lighter. — age 7, and we got them
Dear Santa, please bring my team a quiet January, a client who says thank you, and a meeting that ends early. Also biscuits. — age 8
Dear Santa, this year my team did the impossible thing on a Tuesday and nobody clapped. Please clap. Loudly. — age 9
Dear Santa, please give everyone on my team a real holiday: the kind where the laptop stays shut and nobody writes "quick question". — age 7
Letters for anyone
Dear Santa, I don't want anything for me this year. Just please make sure they have the happiest Christmas. The kind you remember when you're old. — age 7
Dear Santa, please bring this person one perfect day. Not a big one. A good one. With the right people in it. — age 8
Dear Santa, there is someone on my list who never asks for anything. Please bring them something anyway. They'll say it's too much. It isn't. — age 7
Dear Santa, please look after the person reading this. I asked you to once, a long time ago, and you did. Do it again. — age 7, still
Funny letters to Santa for adults
Keep the child's voice and let the adult wish leak through. End on the person, not the joke.
Dear Santa, I have been mostly good. Please bring my dad a nap that nobody interrupts and a remote nobody touches. Also, if you see my brother, I did not break the lamp. — age 7
Dear Santa, this year I would like a full night's sleep, a plant I don't kill, and for my mum to stop sending me articles. But mostly the sleep. For her. She needs it more. — age 34, apparently
Dear Santa, I have checked and I am on the nice list, with footnotes. Please bring my partner the patience to read them. — age 7
Dear Santa, please bring my best friend a Christmas where their family asks zero questions about their job, their love life or their hair. Then bring me the same. — age 8
Dear Santa, my team has asked for a budget, a deadline that moves and a printer that works. We'll settle for the biscuits. — age 9
When to send it
Christmas Day 2026 is Friday 25 December. A letter to Santa is set on Christmas Eve, so send it then: Thursday 24 December, in the evening, when families are together and phones come out. For a partner, the night before works too, when it's just you two. For a team, the last working day before the break, usually Wednesday 23 December, around lunchtime, so it isn't the last thing in an inbox.
If you are sending it as the Dear Santa card, send the link, not a screenshot: the card plays in the browser and needs about ninety seconds of someone's attention. Tell them "give this a minute" and they will.
How to send a letter to Santa that arrives
You can write your letter in a card, or on paper, or in a message. Or you can let it be delivered.
The Dear Santa card on MomentoCard animates exactly this letter. It opens as a paper storybook with the receiver's name on the cover and a wax seal they tap to break. Inside, a child, you at seven, sits at a desk on Christmas Eve and writes your letter line by line as the pencil moves. They tap to send it out of the window; it climbs past the roofs and the aurora and lands in Santa's lap. They tap and he reads it, a line at a time, and it gets to him. He flies out across the moon, tiptoes into the dark bedroom, and they tap to leave the box and a note by the sleeping child. On Christmas morning the child reads the note, they tap to open the box, and the tag carries their name. Then the card: a sheet of paper, the greeting written on by hand, "that child was me", your message, and your photos pegged to a string of lights they light one bulb at a time.
Two names make a complete card. Pick who they are to you (mum, dad, both parents, a partner, a best friend, a sister, a brother, grandparents, your child, your team or anyone) and the letter, Santa's note and the message are written for them. Or paste one of the letters above into the letter field; it takes about 220 characters after "Dear Santa,". Every tap moment happens by itself after a few seconds, so it also plays straight through for someone who only watches, and you can switch the taps off for a pure film. Share the link on WhatsApp, or export a 9:16 video for a story.
If you want more lines for the message on the last page, there are sixty in Emotional Christmas messages for mum, dad, a partner and a best friend. And every Christmas template, the tree, the sleigh ride, the snow globe, is in the Christmas collection.
