Have you been missing your BFF due to the pandemic? If so, we’re warning you: You’re going to need a box of tissues as you read this story about a little girl who was missing her best buddy so badly that she went all the way to Santa Claus to get her back.
Like most kids this time of year, second-grader Annalisse Hocking pulled out a pen and paper to write a letter to Santa Claus. But she didn’t ask for a new Barbie or a pair of roller skates. She asked for something much more priceless: To reconnect with her best friend Nyla.
Annalisse’s letter to Santa read:
Dear Santa, for Chismas I wold like it to be A surprise. Please tell Nyla that I miss her. I have not forgoten about her and Please tell her my adress and evry-thing she needs to know to mail me a letter also Please tell me evrything I need to know to mail a letter to her.
When her mother Lesley Hocking saw the letter, her heart broke for her little girl. Nyla had been one of Annalisse’s best friends, but her family had moved away from Farmington, New Hampshire months ago. The second-graders lost touch.
Hocking decided to use the power of the Internet to make her daughter’s Christmas dreams come true. She shared an image of the letter on her community’s Facebook forum, and the sweet letter quickly went viral as many people shared the post and helped Hocking search for the long-lost Nyla. Here’s one example:
Within just 90 minutes, Hocking was able to get in contact with Nyla’s mother at the family’s new home in Strafford, New Hampshire. Together, the pair arranged for Nyla and Annalisse to meet up at a restaurant in Rochester, New Hampshire. The meeting was a surprise for both girls, and needless to say, the 8-year-olds were thrilled!
“I was really surprised that she came,” Nyla told Dover, New Hampshire’s Foster’s Daily Democrat. “I was speechless. Getting back together with Annalisse, it felt wonderful. I was so amazed.”
The girls have reportedly remained in touch ever since, but they weren’t the only ones moved by the special experience. Nyla’s mom, Sarah Hodgdon, said that seeing the way the community pulled together to reunite the two girls was so neighborly and true to the spirit of the holidays.
“I can’t believe how many people stepped forward and were trying to help two little girls who were in school together for less than a year together and grew such a good bond,” Hodgdon told Foster’s Daily Democrat. “Every day, we’d pick up my daughter at school, she’d hug her and say bye and she’d say, ‘She’s my best friend.’ As a parent, that means the world, that it’s not all bad with everything going on nowadays.”
The reporter who wrote the piece for the paper was also moved, saying that it was “one of my favorite stories in a while”:
This is one of my favorite stories in a while: Annalisse Hocking was missing a friend who moved away, and wrote Santa for help. Santa and elves on Facebook helped find her in 90 mins, yielding a surprise reunion & early Christmas present.@FostersDailyDemhttps://t.co/jLnsxVDFNv
— Kyle Stucker (@KyleStucker) December 3, 2020
Here’s to Christmas wishes coming true … and the big-hearted people who help to make sure that happens!
This story originally appeared on Simplemost. Checkout Simplemost for additional stories.
