“Stamps! Where are my Christmas stamps?” said Madison Clark. She rummaged through her desk drawer. “Oh, I guess I ran out!”
The 12-year-old from San Francisco loved to write pen pal letters, especially at Christmas. She always decorated the envelopes with fancy calligraphy and holiday stamps. Since she ran out of stamps, she would have to make an extra trip to the post office.
Like most years, she was already running behind schedule and had procrastinated in studying for her big World Studies exam. She had to find a way to finish everything at once. Every year at Christmas, Madison sent out the same special letter to her international pen pals to celebrate the holiday season. She hoped to visit each of them personally one day.
“I’m going to travel all over the world!” she told herself as she spun her mostly blue and green globe. Her home in California looked so small compared to the rest of the planet.
She sat down at her desk to study for her test. Her mother would expect that she made her schoolwork a priority. Although she tried, it was hard to concentrate on the text. She needed to memorize all the major capitals of the world with their correct spelling.
At the side of her desk sat special stationery and fountain pens to hand write each of her monthly pen pal letters. Her pals spanned the major continents of the world: Africa, Antarctica, Asia, Australia, Europe, North America, and South America.
She glanced at the stationery and thought that she had done enough studying for now. She prided herself in flipping through her address book. She loved admiring her pen pals’ mailing addresses in Nairobi, Kenya; The South Pole Scientific Lab, Antarctica (originally from Zurich, Switzerland); Osaka, Japan; Melbourne, Australia; Florence, Italy; Montreal, Canada; and Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
“I am a citizen of the world!” Madison printed on the top of this year’s Christmas letters. Then, she stamped a globe on each page with her rubber stamp and inkpad. She had collected her pen pals’ photos and stamps from around the world and placed them under the glass on her bedroom desk. This collection reminded her of her faraway friends.
On a shelf in her bedroom sat dolls that the girls in her pen pal group sent her. Each of the dolls represented a girl in her group. When composing her letters, she put her pen pal dolls on her desk and looked at their faces as though they were her correspondents.
“This year we are each going to sing a Christmas carol, simultaneously, regardless of our time zone,” Madison said to herself as she sat at her bedroom desk with her fountain pen.
As she started her letter, her mother knocked on the bedroom door.
“Are you working on your homework, Madison?” she said. “Don’t you have a World Studies test tomorrow?”
“Yes, Mom, I’m working on it,” Madison said. “I’m just writing my pen pal Christmas cards first!”
“I know you want to be a world traveler, but make sure you finish your schoolwork first,” her mother said. “Otherwise, you won’t be going anywhere!”
“I already started studying a bit,” Madison said. “I have to make sure to finish my pen pal letters, so they can arrive before Christmas!”
“Go back to studying world capitals!” her mother insisted. She took the fountain pen out of Madison’s hand and put it back into its holder. “You can do the letters later!”
“Fine!” Madison said. As soon as her mother left the room, she went back to writing her letters. Once she wrote the first letter, she copied it seven times – once for each girl.
Dear Esther Kwambai, Laura Berlinger, Mitsu Ito, Olivia Smith, Lucia Di Pasqua, Camille Martin, and Amanda Santos:
Merry Christmas! Happy New Year!
The year is almost over, and I’m ready to make New Year’s resolutions!
Before that happens, I would like to give you a Christmas gift, and you can give me the same gift.
At noon on Christmas Day, I am going to sing “Here We Come A-Caroling” for my neighborhood in your honor. It is also known as “The Wassail Song.”
I will knock on the door of every home in my neighborhood and sing the carol for each of the neighbors. My suggestion is that you do the same for your neighbors in your native language.
In English, the stanza says: “Here we come a-caroling, among the leaves so green! Here we come a-wandering, so fair to be seen! Love and joy come to you, and a Merry Christmas, too, and God bless you, and send you a Happy New Year!And God send you a Happy New Year!”
I’m assuming that you know the tune, but if you don’t know it make sure to ask someone to teach it to you before noon at Christmas. When you sing the song for your neighbors, take a picture of their families, and send me their happy faces of holiday cheer! I will do the same for you. Then I will meet your neighbors, and you will meet mine.
From now on, we will celebrate Christmas together, as though the world is very small.
I hope you get every good gift that you wanted for Christmas!
Merry Christmas!
Very truly yours,
Madison Clark
After proofreading her letters, Madison folded her Christmas notes three ways and slipped them into their envelopes. She licked them shut one at a time. She couldn’t wait for her pen pals to get them in the mail. Each country had a deadline as to when the letter must be sent to arrive before Christmas. In order for all the letters to get there in time, the United States Post Office website said to put them in the mail by tonight. She had to figure out how to convince her Mom to take her to the post office.
“The letters look good, honey!” Mrs. Clark said. She snatched them off of Madison’s desk. “I knew you weren’t studying. Now get back to your schoolwork! Dinner is at 6 o’clock.”
“Yes, Mom,” Madison said. She pulled her thick textbook open where she had bookmarked it. She laid down on her bed and tried not to fall asleep. “We still have to run to get stamps and put the letters in the mail,” she said as she kicked her bed covers.
“You can do it tomorrow!” her mother said. Then, she placed the finished letters back on Madison’s desk. “You have enough to do right now!”
“If I study for a half-an-hour, can you please just take me the post office before dinner, so I can get the letters out tonight, and they will arrive on time!” Madison said. “Will you help me carol for the neighbors on Christmas Day? I will sing. You can take the pictures for my pen pals.”
“If you study for a solid 30 minutes, I will take you to the post office, and then you come right back and continue studying!” her mother said. “This is my peace offering.”
“Thanks, Mom! I love you,” Madison said, as she stuck her nose into her book.
“As far as caroling, I hope the neighbors understand your enthusiasm!” Mrs. Clark said. “I’ll have to bring them Christmas cookies. You father and brother will never agree to carol, so it will just be you and me.”
After thirty minutes of uninterrupted study—when Madison was sure she would get an A on her World Studies test—she hopped in the car and hurried to the United States Post Office with her mom. Usually, the line only had a few people, but that day it extended all the way around the corner into the parking lot. The office was about to close.
“My Christmas Cards have to be sent out today!” Madison said to the man next to her in line. Her looked at mother as she waited for her in the car. “Otherwise, my letters won’t get to my friends by Christmas Day!”
“Child, I have the same problem,” the man said. He peered over the packages he held at his chest. “If the postmasters would only move a little quicker . . .”
Then, she spotted her elderly neighbors Mr. and Mrs. Thompson at the front of the post office line. The couple slipped out before Madison could say “hello” to them, but she remembered how Mrs. Thompson made cookies for her every year for Christmas.
By the time Madison reached the front of the line, the post office worker slid out a sign that said: “CLOSED.”
“Closed? What do you mean, closed?” Madison said. “My letters have to go out today!”
“We ran out of stamps, Madison. Sorry!” Mr. Green, the postal worker, said. “Don’t you have any extra stamps at home?”
“Mr. Green, I don’t have extra stamps! I used them all,” Madison said. “You are the United States Post Office. You are not supposed to run out of stamps.”
“If your letters must go out today, find some stamps somewhere and put them in the blue mailbox outside by six o’clock,” Mr. Green said. “Or come back tomorrow.”
“This means that I only have minutes!” Madison said. She threw up her hands.
Madison felt like singing “Here We Come A-Caroling” in protest, but she thought it wouldn’t do much good. She wondered what she would do now and ran back to her mom in the car. She considered collecting stamps from the neighbors, which would be like early Christmas caroling.
“The Post Office is out of stamps!” Madison said to her mother as she sat down in the car and slammed the door. “I have to ask the neighbors for help.”
“You’re supposed to be studying for your test!” her mother said. “And your father is hungry! I am sure he is waiting for dinner with your brother.”
“I’m sorry! I’ll stay up late!” Madison said. “I’ll finish everything somehow.”
Madison knocked on one door after another in the neighborhood, but no one answered. Then, when one of the neighbors opened the door, they did not have any stamps.
“No stamps here!” Mr. Johnson said. His television blared through the house. “I wish that I could help you.”
“It’s okay!” Madison said. Her eyes welled up with tears.
She knocked on another door just in case. Mrs. Wellington opened her front door. Madison could hear her dog barking in the kitchen.
“Madison! What are you doing here?” Mrs. Wellington asked. Her curlers bounced in her hair. She held a bottle of nail polish in her hands.
“I wondered if I could borrow some stamps?” Madison said. “I need them for my Christmas pen pal letters.”
“How is your mother?” Mrs. Wellington asked with a smile. “Give me a second, and I’ll check if I have any.” After a moment, Mrs. Wellington returned empty handed.
“I’m sorry,” Mrs. Wellington said. “I can’t help you! I’m all out of stamps, too!”
“Merry Christmas anyhow!” Madison said. Then, she sat down on the sidewalk and kicked the stones in the road.
“Madison, we should just go home and try again tomorrow,” her mother said. “Maybe your letters will still get there on time, even if you send them tomorrow.”
“It has to be today!” Madison said. “Everything is ruined if it is not today!”
Finally, Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, the kind gray-haired couple in the neighborhood, pulled into the driveway in their car.
“Madison, what’s wrong?” Mr. Thompson said. “Can I help you? Why are you crying?”
“The post office is out of stamps! I used all my stamps, and my family never sends letters!” Madison said. “I need to send my letters today, so they arrive overseas by Christmas.”
“Well, I happened to go to the post office earlier today, and I bought a stack of Christmas stamps,” Mr. Thompson said. “Why don’t I just give them to you? Then, I can go back to the post office tomorrow when they have more stamps.”
“My letters will go out on time after all!” Madison said. Mr. Thompson handed her his stack of holiday stamps. “Could you drive me back to the blue mailbox at the post office? It’s five minutes to six o’clock.”
“Hop inside my car!” Mr. Thompson said. He winked at Mrs. Thompson, who glanced at the groceries in her car. “We’ll be there in no time flat!”
Madison sat in the back seat, snapped her seatbelt shut, and placed stamps on seven envelopes. She rolled down the window and yelled to her mom: “I’ll be right back!”
Her mother looked exhausted and waved at Madison with a sigh.
“I’m putting extra stamps on the envelopes because they have to go across five oceans,” Madison said. She pasted more than enough postage on each letter. As she looked at her watch, she realized that they were almost too late.
As Mr. Thompson stopped at the blue mailbox outside the post office, Madison slipped her seven envelopes into the mail slot in the nick of time. Not a moment later, the postal worker collected the last letters for the day.
“Just in time!” Madison said with a cheer. “Merry Christmas everyone!”
Then, she hurried home, only to find her cold dinner sitting on the kitchen table with a lid on it. The rest of the family had eaten by this point.
“Now back to studying!” her mother called. “No time to waste!”
Madison stayed up way too late and memorized the world map. Her mother had to give her extra hot chocolate to wake her up in the morning. Despite being tired, she passed the World Studies exam at school that day with flying colors. All along, she knew she could do it!
Then, on Christmas Day, Mrs. Clark kept her word and accompanied Madison to each home in the neighborhood for caroling. She took pictures as her daughter sang. No one sang louder with Madison than Mr. and Mrs. Thompson, who were thrilled their pictures would accompany her next pen pal letters.
“We’re only on photo six,” Mrs. Clark said, as she clicked the camera. “Smile for number seven!”
“Make sure you have enough postage this time!” Mr. Thompson said. “I might not always have extra on hand.”
“Yes, sir,” Madison said. She grinned at her mom and checked off the Thompson family from her neighborhood list. “Two more families to go for photos, Mom.”
When Madison received her return pen pal letters in January, she had all new photos to place beneath the glass on her bedroom desk. Even if she felt very small sometimes, her world was getting bigger and bigger. It could only continue to grow.
Christmas had been celebrated a little bit more all around the world, just because Madison insisted on sending out her letters on time!
Copyright 2015 Jennifer Waters
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