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Dear Santa,

Hey man, great work this year. You really look ruddier and jollier than ever, and I appreciate that you got me those pajamas even though there's a menorah in our apartment.

I wanted to talk to you about my little friend, Meredith. She's either eight or 18, I can't really tell any more. That's why I'm writing. She's in third grade, and I see her struggling with her belief this year more than ever. All of her older cousins are busy rolling their eyes or playing with their Wiis, and Meredith last night was once again tracking your flight online down from the North Pole. She is so earnest in her devotion to you.

I also see a fragility in her belief in herself. I worry about her clothes and her food and the way she tells me she doesn't like to eat and then goes upstairs to change her clothes into another spaghetti-thin outfit. I am in no place to judge her; I'm just hoping you can give me some advice on how to talk to her. Third grade seems to be when I learned cursive, how to call someone a grotty jerkhead, and also started searching for something, someone to believe in.

Thank you for reading all the letters sent to you, Santa. Thank you for listening to all the whispered pleas of children young and old, good and bad. Thank you for flying over the entire world in one night with a bag full of toys that somehow fits down chimneys in Uganda and New Jersey.

I know Meredith will move on to other people and ideas to believe in. I just want her to have a little more time with you. I want her to have someone rotund and boisterous, who essentially works two days out of the year, to play with and admire. I have prayed for the past 25 years and though I've often been misguided in my intentions, I never regret believing in a jolly, full-bellied father figure.

Please, Santa, give my friend Meredith and all children some time with sugar plum fairies, candy canes, and a moment of hope as they look up into the night sky.

Happy 2009,

Dear Vivian,

Yeah, I'm actually not sure that's your name, but I think you're regal and exotic enough to pull it off, and I imagine one day we could maybe be close enough that I could call you Viv.

One day.

See, I'm the girl who comes into your café most weekday mornings wearing the same faded red sweatpants and asking you if I can get a refill of coffee and some tap water. Lamest order ever, I know. I wish we could get past my lack of imagination. I feel bad that I can't compliment your apron or bleached dreads without possibly sounding condescending.

I honestly want to be your friend.

I've worked my share of coffee shops, so we could start off just bantering about different espresso grinds and how to spruce up day-old pastries. I bet we would find that we have a lot more in common than just that. If you think about it, we spend at least 20 hours a week together, which is more than I can say I spend with most of my family.

I guess the real reason I'm writing is that I feel like this might've been a hard year for you. Maybe it's just the morning mayhem or the pace of serving coffee in midtown Manhattan, but I feel like in 365 days I haven't seen you crack a smile once. I am not blaming you. I'm just hoping that 2010 gives you new reasons to laugh, let loose, maybe even take off that visor and unleash your awesome mane. I honestly don't know why I get to sip the coffee that you pour. I wish it was the other way around. I hope that in this new year you get to sit near a radiator listening to carefully plucked guitar music and hold a hot cup of your favorite drink, having no idea what time it is and not needing to know.

Take care,

Dear Baby Sarah and The Fonz,

Do you guys know each other? Because you should.

Sarah, The Fonz is the best thing to ever happen to pomade and motorcycles.

Fonz, Sarah is a fifteen-month-old friend of mine who just got new thumbs so she could imitate you when you say "Aaaaaaaay."

I'm a great dabbler in self-pity and woe-is-me swooning, and I just want to thank you both for showing me the true art of overcoming obstacles, whether it's getting the jukebox back on track or learning how to hold a sippy cup. The Fonz was born with a newborn sized bomber jacket. Sarah was not. She was also born without thumbs, because of a genetic disease. The awesome doctors at Children's Hospital of Boston said, "No thumbs, no prob" (rough translation). One of the highlights of going on a book tour this fall was getting to meet and play with Sarah in all her opposable gripping splendor. Seriously, new thumbs?! She did an army crawl that gave my ankles windburn, not to mention her crooning into a small Casio. Thank you Sarah and Fonzie, for teaching me the simple joy and grace in each digit of my hand. In 2010, I hope to hitchhike for a good cause.

Speaking of good causes, I wanted to also thank some other amazing hurdlers who've done incredible work this past year...

Elissa Levy, president and founder of MS Hope for a Cure: talk about making soufflé out of limes. This woman was diagnosed with MS at age 33 and has used her condition to propel her forward. Raising funds for research and throwing the most non-pity-party galas in the name of charity. Check out her organization and sign up for a newsletter so you can be on board for the yearly poker tournament.

Leigh Hurst: another revolutionary I admire. Her organization is called Feel Your Boobies and it started when she did just that. She has been disease-free for a number of years now, but that doesn't mean she has abandoned others who deal with breast cancer. She initially made a t-shirt for her friends and family who helped her through her initial diagnosis and treatment. It was supposed to be a joke. It wound up sparking worldwide attention, making it hip for under-forties to talk about and take care of their bodies. Thank you, Leigh.

Louis T. was an amazing man, with a laugh that shook me upside down and enough pinup posters to start a forest fire. Sadly, Louis passed away a few years ago from complications with Cystic Fibrosis. His nephew, Louis Jr. was born this past May and he too lights up a room with laughter and chocolate-eyed gaping. I am sorry to say that he too has been diagnosed with CF. Only this time, his doctors have given a wonderfully hopeful prognosis. They truly feel that the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation is close to a cure and that little Louis will get to enjoy it. I know they have to be right.

All right, and a list of heroes wouldn't be complete without Michael Jackson. I didn't bid on your bedazzled golf glove, but I do count you as one of the sexiest men to ever teach me ABCs.

Thank you to all blaze trailers of 2009.

XO,

Dr. Wilson! Merry Merry!

It's me, Abby. Maybe you'd remember me if I took off all my clothes and lay on my back nervously counting your ceiling tiles? I know you get this a lot but I thought we kind of bonded over those nine months and then there was the whole changing my life in an instant thing which was pretty momentous, and I have a picture of you and my infant daughter perched between my legs running on a screensaver across my computer.

It's okay if you don't remember, though I wish you did.

Running into you at Costco this past spring was pretty fun. Never knew you liked water crackers that much!

I guess I was just hoping we could catch up. You mentioned that you were changing ob-gyn practices but when I looked for you at the new office, there was no one with your name. Then I did a little googling but it only churned up a Dr. Wilson in a hospital a few hours away.

I know I need to get over you. I did visit a midwifery a few weeks ago, but the woman I saw seemed thoroughly unimpressed with my cervix.

Holiday time gets pretty tricky sometimes. There are so many people to gift and thank, so many frosted cookies and so many unoccupied moments in which to reflect on how far I've come or how long I've stood still. I get pretty weepy and moody and miss the people with whom I've lost touch.

Dr. Wilson, whether we get to meet again or not, I just wanted to tell you what an incredible woman and doctor you are. Every time I saw you throughout my pregnancy, you calmed and comforted me. You were not only a phenomenal mother figure for me, you showed me parts of my body I'd never seen before, you celebrated my child's growing heartbeat, you even told me and my husband we made a good team. Not to mention never mentioning my leg hair or studying my pee.

Having lost my own mom a few years ago, I can't tell you what your guidance and soft touch meant to me. In just a few short visits you taught me the importance of honesty, patience, and breath. I hope you are enjoying your family this holiday season, and I feel blessed to know you were the first person to greet my daughter in this world.

XO,

Hello new friend,

I know, that's pretty presumptuous of me, but I thought that since we are spending this holiday week together we could just cut to the chase and get to the part where we like each other. I want to thank Powell's for asking me to guest blog during this tinselly time. I just published a book called Amen, Amen, Amen: Memoir of a Girl Who Couldn't Stop Praying (Among Other Things), and I think that's why they wanted me to blog here. Or else because I'm Jewish (so they thought I'd be relatively free this week).

Back in the '90s, I had a part-time job at a place called Mail Boxes Etc., where we packed and shipped precious items and wasted a forest's worth of bubble wrap. This time of year was always full of sprinkled cookies, extra tours with the vacuum at night, and the occasional distraught customer who needed their presents airlifted to Turkey by Christmas or else!! I had two amazing bosses who made me laugh so hard I inhaled packing peanuts, and though the paper cuts were severe, that job really gave me new appreciation for the postal service and the art of letter writing. This week, I'd like to share some letters with you, which I may or may not tuck into an envelope and stamp. Two thousand nine has been an incredible year for me, and I need to recognize just a few of the people and organizations who helped make it so. Please feel free to write (and send) your own year-end letters. (You can always send them to me at www.abbysher.com.)

÷ ÷ ÷

Dear Powells,

This is a little awkward, but you were my first. I mean, there was that independent bookstore Anderson's, back in my hometown in Westchester, New York. I definitely loved those shelves and hid by the stacks of Choose Your Own Adventure books for hours. But Powell's, you were the first bookstore where I really fell in love.

Hyde Park, Illinois, circa November, 1991. Your storm door was dressed in fingerprint smudges and peace-loving bumper stickers. A tinkly bell announced each visitor and there was a cranky cat who scowled next to the cash register. Everyone who worked behind the desk smelled like dust and knew the history of the written word.

I wandered towards the biographies. Warren Buffet was next to Bruno Bettelheim and Lucille Ball. You had very eclectic tastes. I wanted to impress the hot guy with charcoal-stained hands who was moving towers of coffee table books and punching numbers into a calculator.

"Do you guys carry anything about...Dostoyevsky?" I had just signed up for a freshman introduction to Russian language, mostly because the one girl in my dorm who looked like she could be my friend was fluent.

"Yeah, look in Slavic," grunted my future lover/cashier.

"Duh, of course!" I squeaked.

I have to admit, I don't know that I ever bought something from your store. But for the next four years that I lived in Hyde Park, I ambled and lingered among your shelves for countless hours. I even put a few books on hold once just to have an excuse to come back in and for you to know my name.

Powell's, thank you for those cobwebbed spines and lost afternoons. Thank you for humbling me with your wisdom and teaching me that I could never be alone as long as I opened a new page. Thank you for the cardboard box of freebies outside, where I first learned to hoard textbooks about neurology and paperback philosophers with bites taken out of the cover. Thank you most of all for that charmed and frightening moment when I leaned into one of your warped shelves, sagging under the weight of thousands of words I'd never laid eyes on, and you gave me the most delicate kiss of a dream. Thank you for letting me close my eyes and envision a book spine with my name on it.

Eighteen years later, thank you for making it come true.

Happy New Year, Powell's.

XO,

abby

[Editor's Note: While Powell's Books' roots are in Chicago, today the Hyde Park location operates independently of the Powell's Books in