按：Lin是一个从美国到中国来的小女孩。不清楚她有多大，但正是开始怀疑圣诞老人是否存在，但又希望圣诞老人确有其事的年龄。她写了一封信给圣诞老人，问他为什么老是爽约，她告诉圣诞老人，她不喜欢过一个没有圣诞老人的圣诞节。最后，Lin sealed the letter carefully, and left it on the table. She went to sleep early. In her dreams, she heard a faint jingling. It was the bells on Santa’s reindeer soaring through the night sky. The sound grew faint, and blurred into the distance. A peaceful silence remained.  可以想象，随着这封信渐干的墨迹，幸福和平和的童年远去了，伴随而来的是动荡和喧闹的青春。

这是大女儿在15岁时用英文写的一篇小说。

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Lin’s Christmas

陈双双

        "Dear Santa,” Lin wrote. "This will be the last letter I write.”

        Thanksgiving had just ended. Christmas is coming. The stores are emptying their stocked-up goods by with generous sales. Even these shopping malls in China are trying to capitalize on this foreign holiday. Trees are set up -- giant gingerbread houses stand proud before the doors of restaurants. Fake Santas are bowing and laughing, "Ho Ho Ho!”. Children who have been dragged along to this forest of legs cling to their parents, occasionally taking the chance to peek out at the red, chubby feature that choked with laughter.

        "I can’t remember how many letters I’ve written to you. I know you read them, even though the sheer number of letters must take you a long time even to look over.” She lifted her pen and hesitated.

        This is Christmas, Lin thought as she wove through the store aisles searching for Christmas decorations. I wonder if Santa Claus will come this year, she wondered with a hint of bitterness. After all these years, she had still not given up on Santa. She decided to buy a Christmas tree. Last year she had not bought one because of the disappointment and perhaps a little anger she felt towards Santa, for he had not come the year before when she had elaborately decorated her apartment with all the necessary elements to greet Santa’s arrival. Maybe that was the reason Santa decided not to come visit last year. She scowled at herself for not having faith in Santa; he was probably just too busy last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, and every other year since she had separated from her parents. 

        "Will you ever forgive me? I have always tried my best to be a good person, and the only major mistake I ever made to deserve your punishment was leaving my parents in America and coming here alone against their wishes.” She paused, wondering if she did indeed do anything else that deserved this treatment. Nothing came to mind. Santa is supposed to bring presents for every well-behaved child, her parents had always told her. I’m still a child, she reminded herself. I will always be my parent’s daughter, even though I misbehaved those years when I left home. But haven’t these years made it up for it already? I call my parents every week and care for them by hiring a nanny. It is not an easy price, she thought, but this is something I will have to do to be a good kid, "or else Santa won’t get you any gifts!” Her Mother’s voice seems to ring in her ears, over and over.

        "You never visited at Christmas after that, leaving me alone with all the decorations I put up to welcome you and then forcing me take them down every year all alone.” She glanced at the tree next to her, wondering the fate of this grand tree this Christmas. It will face the same destiny as it did all those years before, bound, covered and forgotten in the corner of her storage room until Christmas arrives another time. “I’ll throw you away this time…” Lin joked at the tree. There was no response. A split second later, Lin returned to her letter.

        She had bought some fresh Christmas lights, sparkling with red, green and white, Christmas colors, some golden pine cones, red linen bows, glinting little angels that will soon be dangling freely. She could almost visualize the tree now -- steady and solemn, magical even, awaiting Santa’s midnight arrival, carrying the hopes and wishes of billions of families.

        "I have wondered before if it was because I came to China, and you couldn’t come to China, but I feel ashamed that I ever doubted your ability in that way. You are capable of traveling everywhere and bringing happiness to all of the people who believe in you.”

        She saw a fake Santa. The ugly plastic face, in a flesh color, grinned at her in a wrinkled smile, the lines fixed permanently onto his face. It bowed down low like a servant, inch by inch, and straightened up again, only to bow once more to the empty space before it. It smiled to the ground before it, beckoning the customers to enter the shop. A surge of anger swept over her. Using Santa as a marketing technique? She felt her insides churn.

        "I have always tried to imagine your face and what it would really look like. The fake Santas in the mall are really an insult to you, stiff and soulless, a poor attempt we have made to capture the essence of you and Christmas.”

        Resisting the temptation to knock the funny dummy down, she reminded herself that this was the way people here celebrated, and it would be considered misbehavior to knock things down in public. Plus, an elf might see her and report it to Santa. Santa wouldn’t like that, but neither would he have liked the fake Santas that stood all over the place. They never had gotten Santa’s essence quite right.

        "I can’t think of anything else that I have done wrong, but I just can’t spend all this time on Christmas, waiting for you when you never seem to visit anymore. Every year, this crushing reality that strikes when I see the empty tree is just more that I can bear. I thought that after all these years I would grow accustomed to your absence, but now it seems impossible. I have finally come to the conclusion that I have to give up on you no matter how much this hurts me.” Lin rested her pen by the letter, and saw that the words crooked awkwardly, the pen almost penetrating the fine paper.

        Next to the Santa, lines of elves accompanied him. Lin never liked Santa’s elves; these little sly creatures never let her see them, hiding in shadows, spying on everyone’s behavior and reporting back to Santa. She could understand, however, that Santa was busy. He couldn’t do everything by himself. This realization let her to cope with these little minions of Christmas and to feel relatively comfortable with living under their surveillance.

        "I never liked your elves, and I thought that now is probably the best time to tell you this, as they won’t have the chance to get even by telling you false information anymore. They never let me see them, and they sneak around in my life, hiding in the shadows, like little spies. To tell the truth, I don’t like them because they may speak ill of me. No matter how juvenile that is, it is a symbol of my willingness to please you."

        Lin arrived at home, dazed by the long metro ride she took. Her mind was empty, even though she knew she should be using all the time she had left to think about Santa, as these might be the last hours in which she is able to do so. The empty tree was there waiting for her, green and hollow. She carefully started decorating. Before long, the living room truly had the ambiance of Christmas. She baked a bunch of cookies for Santa and prepared some baby carrots for the reindeer. She sat down at her desk. She picked up the fountain pen lying on its side, feeling the smooth, cold metal surface of the pen, and thought about the words she’d like to put down on this letter. This is the last letter she will write to Santa Claus.

        "I cannot stand Christmas with your absence any longer.”

        "Goodbye, Santa.”

        Lin sealed the letter carefully, and left it on the table. She went to sleep early. In her dreams, she heard a faint jingling. It was the bells on Santa’s reindeer soaring through the night sky. The sound grew faint, and blurred into the distance. A peaceful silence remained.