In celebration of National Letter Writing Day in the UK, a number of celebrities have participated in the tradition of writing letters to Father Christmas. Included in that list of famous letter writers are musicians Annie Lennox and Thom Yorke, who seem to echo one another’s wishes for peace and love for Christmas an long after.
Before writing that she truly wished Santa “existed for grown ups”, Lennox had asked Father Christmas for assistance for the world’s refugees: “Could you ensure that entire generations aren’t forced to flee their homes in cities, towns and villages in war-torn countries from Syria to Nigeria because they are being continuously bombed, burned and brutalised at every turn” and for “sanity and comparison in hearts of the criminal profiteers of hatred, bloodshed and warfare.”
Thom Yorke, whose letter has been published in its original format exclusively by NME, details his hopes for his children at Christmas time:
now that i’m 47, if i have any last remaining credit with you, i have just these small requests.
that my kids have a beautiful christmas
with love and understanding and peace.
perhaps some heavy snow? that would be really great.
and can you just send the precious things that will really mean something to them?
and can you send them some hope for the future. that is very important.
He goes on to say that he won’t ask Santa to undertake such a task as solving the problems of the human race (“those are our problems alone.”) but that perhaps he could stiff major oil company executives and politicians they hold in their pockets. Something tells us that maybe Santa was already onto that, as there’s no fathomable way they were on his Nice list. As for Thom himself? A pair of reading glasses wouldn’t go astray: “the blue ones”.
p.s. thanks for the zx81 computer when i was 11. that was really wicked.
Read the full letter:
