Adults hoping for help: Heartbreaking requests among Santa letters

– Employment figures, economic indicators, stock prices. Bah, humbug! Read some letters to Santa if you want to understand the Recession That Will Not Die….

“Letters to Santa? From grown-ups?” I asked.

Nearly 300 letters, written in neat print or loopy cursive script, described jobs lost and hungry children, addressed by adults to a man in a red suit who is apparently their last hope.

“I’m a single mom living in the D.C. General shelter with my kids,” one letter began. It ended with a request for not toys or bikes but clothes. Instead of model numbers and prices, she included her children’s shoe, underwear and clothing sizes.

“I want them to know there is hope,” she wrote.

Read it all.

Also, I caught an NPR story during the week on this same theme. Read or listen to it all also.

Posted in * Culture-Watch, * Economics, Politics, Children, Economy, Housing/Real Estate Market, Labor/Labor Unions/Labor Market, Marriage & Family, The Credit Freeze Crisis of Fall 2008/The Recession of 2007--