The other day, I got a phone call that left me utterly flabbergasted. It began like any other call, with me answering, “Don Nicholas speaking.” But then, a voice that sounded suspiciously like Santa Claus himself boomed through the line. “Don, this is Santa Claus, and I’m calling to thank you and the GreenPrints team for publishing that marvelous holiday storybook collection.”

Now, I’ve had my fair share of prank calls, but this one was taking it to a whole new level. I couldn’t help but chuckle, thinking it was one of my friends playing a holiday joke on me. I mean, who gets a call from Santa Claus in October?

Santa, or whoever this jolly impersonator was, continued, “You see, I’m a gardener. Not many people would think that given that I live at the North Pole, but we have the most marvelous greenhouses up here, where we grow everything from tomatoes to roses.”

I was starting to doubt my own sanity at this point. But the caller seemed to sense my disbelief and said, “Don, I can tell you’re having a little trouble believing it’s me. Let me help you out… When you were six years old, you got a brand new navy blue bicycle from me. When you were eight, it was a model sailboat that you wanted, and when you were 12, I got you your first regulation NBA basketball. Does that help you believe that this is really me calling?”

I was flabbergasted. Those were indeed the exact gifts I received during those ages. How on earth could this person know about my childhood gifts?

“Well,” Santa continued, “I really just wanted to thank you because I love storybooks, and I think they make the absolute best holiday gifts. They encourage family time, you know? I love it when families pull out storybooks that I’ve given them from years before and read them aloud to each other as a holiday tradition. I think your new holiday storybook is the kind of book that will become part of those traditions because it epitomizes a love of family, traditions, and one of the things that I love most in the world… Gardening.”

Santa wished me a warm goodbye, and I hung up the phone, still in a state of disbelief. Had I really just been chatting with Santa Claus himself? The only logical explanation was that it truly was Santa, perhaps because I wanted it to be.

If you haven’t already checked out our new Holiday Story Collection, I encourage you to do so. In the 40 plus years I’ve been working in gardening publishing, it’s the first storybook for the holidays that I’ve ever produced. You see, almost all of the magazines and books I’ve ever published were about how to garden or what to garden. But this GreenPrints storybook, along with all of our storybooks and magazine issues, is really about the love of gardening, and the stories are just the way we all share that love with the GreenPrints community.

I hope you have a wonderful holiday season, and on behalf of all of us here at GreenPrints, I’m hoping our new Holiday Story Collection will become part of your family traditions. Who knows, maybe even Santa Claus himself will be reading it in his North Pole greenhouse!

Happy gardening, and happy storytelling!