Everyone needs a break around the Christmas season, especially overworked parents [1]. With all the stress that comes with trying to make the season perfect for the kids [2], sometimes it's necessary to sit back and enjoy the quietness of a Winter day. This is why it wasn't until I was a parent myself that I realised the secret reason why my stepmom always had me write a letter to Santa [3].

At some point in December, I'm sure when I was being extra talkative or high energy, she would usher [4] me to the living room. Under one of the end tables was a stack of catalogueues that had been collected throughout the year. Not your average piece of junk mail from that store you made a purchase from that one time, these massive capitalism monstrosities had everything that the store had to offer.

There, propped up next to the stack of catalogueues, she would have a pad of paper and pencils, and I was instructed to write down any toys I wanted Santa to know about [5]. I would be working for hours, in part because I was a child who was learning how to write legibly, but also because I had to turn every page to ensure that I never missed anything.

Of all those years carefully writing down toy names, page numbers, and prices, I never actually received any those curated toys. But that's really not the point.

Let's assume that my childhood was not damaged because of not getting any particular toy. Arguably I forgot most of the toys I wrote down because I was writing pages of requests. The joys of consumerism. What this little parenting hack did was give my stepmom some much needed quiet time [6] away from a very loud child. It let her tackle some of her mounting holiday chores, or maybe just sit and actually finish a cup of coffee.

As a parent now, I salute her and all of her Santa-hacking ways. I raise my cup of room temperature coffee, surrounded by a pile of presents to wrap, and say thanks. You earned that break, and now so do I. Time to find some catalogueues.