Each year, hopeful children write their Christmas lists for Santa in the hope of receiving gifts they've been pining after all year. Some are more outlandish than others, with unusual requests including a squirrel (yes really), a house or a huge blue truck.
But other children's list are far more more sobering, and truly highlight the crippling financial struggles that many families across the country are facing this Christmas.
One woman has taken to Twitter to show the heartbreaking letter her niece wrote for Father Christmas. Enough to bring tears to anybody's eyes, the note begged Santa to intervene to help her mum and dad with their finances, rather than asking for gifts for herself.
The selfless eight-year-old had penned a letter on the back of her Harry Potter notepad, which read: "To Santa, all I want for Christmas is some money for mummy and daddy. They struggle with bills and mortgages and I even feel sad."
"Please please Santa", she wrote, followed with a smiley face, "Can you make it work!"
"I know it's a lot though, I'm sorry", the little girl added, before drawing a sad face. Then she signed it off: "Love Emmie xxx"
The final word in her emotional letter was: "Please!" which she followed with another sad face.
The tweet her auntie wrote read: "My Sister has just found this letter to Santa, written by her 8-year-old Daughter. It's made me cry a lot to think that someone so young is even thinking about this!", followed by a crying emoji.
In the Twitter thread, the woman also asked prime minister Rishi Sunak to 'sort this out!'
Shop staff at Dunelm have also been left lost for words as children have asked for basic items this Christmas in their scheme, rather than extravagant gifts. The scheme has shed light on the reality of poverty for many children in the UK.
Dunelm's appeal involves putting up pre-written tags on a Christmas tree in stores that customers can take home, purchase and return with the selected gift before December 11.
The tearjerking tags made requests such as "hat and a biscuit please" and another boy under 12 heartbreakingly asked for "a teddy to hold in case Santa doesn't come to me."
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