This is the 5th story in our Dear Santa: Real Questions, Real Answers series, where the questions are real, and so are the answers.

“You’re not really Santa.”

You know something?

You are right.

No one is Santa all by himself.

Santa is much too big for one person to hold. He is made from every secret kindness, every promise kept, every lonely child remembered, and every gift given without asking for praise.

That is why the red coat is not simply purchased. It is entrusted.

Sometimes Christmas notices a person who keeps making room for others. Someone who listens when children speak, protects those who are smaller, and feels happiest when another person’s eyes light up.

Christmas quietly calls that person closer.

If he accepts, he is given a small part of Santa’s work to carry. The coat reminds him that the work never belongs to him. He belongs to the work.

So perhaps I am not the entire Santa.

Perhaps I am the part of Santa who was sent to be with you today.

And someday, when you help someone who feels forgotten, Santa may appear somewhere no one expected, inside you.

Santa becomes real wherever someone answers the call to carry Christmas for another.