This is the 10th story in our Dear Santa: Real Questions, Real Answers series, where the questions are real, and so are the answers.

Santa, what’s your favorite cookie?

Most children expect me to say chocolate chip.

And I do enjoy chocolate chip, especially when someone adds a few extra chips for an old traveler.

But my favorite cookie is not really a flavor.

On Christmas Eve, every cookie left for me carries a tiny bit of warmth. Not the kind that comes from an oven. It is the warmth left behind by the person who was thinking of me.

A perfectly decorated cookie may carry some.

But so can a crooked cookie with too many sprinkles, a slightly burned edge, or one small thumbprint in the middle.

There is only one rule: that special warmth cannot be added by trying to make the cookie impressive. It appears while someone is measuring, stirring, and thinking, “I hope Santa likes this.”

That is why I can taste the difference between something made to be admired and something made to make another person feel remembered.

So my favorite cookie is whichever one tells me, before I take the first bite:

“Someone was thinking about you.”

The best part of any gift is the part of you that thought of someone else.