Santa loves getting letters from boys and girls all over the world—so write to him yourself! You can include anything you like in your letter. You might tell Santa what you’re doing to get ready for Christmas and let him know what you’d love to see in your stocking or under the tree.

Feel free to ask questions too (like, what do reindeer really like to eat?). If you enjoy drawing or coloring, send Santa a special picture signed by you, the artist!

If you’re lucky enough to visit North Pole Nights at Gilroy Gardens, you can mail your letter straight from the North Pole Post Office to be sure it gets to him in time! And while you’re here, be sure to stop by Santa’s Workshop to see “the big guy” himself and get a photo to take home. Ho, ho, ho!

In The Magic of Santa (see #8 above), Skitter the Mouse learns that the real magic of Christmas comes from helping make other people’s wishes come true. Try it for yourself! Think about ways that you can do something nice to surprise some of the people in your family, or your friends, or maybe your teacher, coach, or neighbor next door.

There’s no limit to the nice things you can do! Maybe write them a little note, draw a picture, sing a song, or offer to help with a chore. Fresh-baked cookies are always a good choice (see #4 above), but sometimes even something as simple as a short visit or phone call to say hello can be just as special.

The best thing is, when you help make someone else happy, that makes YOU happy too—and that’s the real magic of the holiday season!

Claudia’s Garden is a quiet and peaceful place. It’s fun to wander on the curved paths and listen to the gurgling creek that flows through the garden. Most of the trees in this garden are conifers, which means they have needle-like leaves and produce seed cones.

Some of the trees are twisted into cool shapes called topiaries. Others are naturally “weeping,” with their branches growing down toward the ground. You’ll also notice lots of annual flowers planted among all the trees, with bright colors that change with the seasons.

Most guests don’t notice it, but there’s also a “secret entrance” to Claudia’s Garden when you first enter the park. Keep your eyes open for it! It’s a little pathway just off the beginning of Sycamore Bridge, on the right side.

Although you’ll find more houses than farms these days, there are still an estimated 1,000 acres of cherry trees growing in and around Gilroy—and that makes for a lot of cherries to harvest!

To enjoy them fresh off the farm, visit one of Gilroy’s many fruit stands like Ralph’s Cherry Hut, the Very Merry Cherry Stand, The Cherry Shack, or LJB Farms. And don’t forget Casa de Fruta, the grand orchard resort that started out as a simple roadside cherry stand and now includes a restaurant, a candy shop, a merry-go-round, cool log cabins you can stay in, and even the Casa de Choo Choo train.

Cherries grown in California are shipped throughout the United States and even to other nations, including Canada, China, and Japan. To ship that far, cherries have to be harvested very carefully, then “hydrocooled” quickly using cold water. Then they’re packed into refrigerated shipping containers that keep them fresh for about two weeks.

The sweet cherry originally grew somewhere in Asia and was probably carried to Europe by birds. The Greeks were the first to plant cherry trees; later, the Romans planted them along roadsides and used the trees for both wood and fruit.

Sweet cherries came to the U.S. with English colonists in the 1600s, and later were introduced to California by Spanish missionaries. In the 1800s, pioneers and fur traders brought sweet cherries westward to Washington, Oregon, and California.