Working at a newspaper means you experience it all.

Reporters are asked to enter the depths of prisons, stand alongside the coroner at murder scenes, travel into battle with soldiers and question governmental leaders with no mercy.

We represent you — the reader — when you can’t be there. And we take the duty seriously.

So, Tuesday I left our office, notebook in hand prepared to ask the tough questions and handle the heat.

Twenty minutes later I got the answer I was looking for.

“I saw Santa in my mommy’s room.”

The words came confidently bounding from the mouth of a kindergarten student in the reading lab of hall C at West Primary School.

I quickly suppressed a grin. The teacher standing behind the student didn’t have to.

“Oh, did you,” I said. “Did you say anything to Santa?”

“I said, ‘I see Santa Claus,’” she said.

And that was that.

But the three others at the table admitted they’d only seen Santa at the mall, never in their very own house.

“He was there, but I was asleep,” the little boy said.

And that’s a good thing, he said, because if Santa ever asked him to fly along in the sleigh, he’d be scared.

Trust in Santa ends with faith that the toys will come, apparently.

And these four 5 and 6 year olds do trust Santa for that.

In fact, their trust is so deep that they see no need at all to even let Santa know what they want this year.

The children had no plan to make their requests — for a computer, a bike, a PlayStation and a car — known to dear old Mr. Claus.

Santa knows what they want because, “He’ll think.”

And magically lists will appear in his head, I suppose.

“He has a note,” one of the children said.

“He knows who has been bad and who has been good,” another said, proving children know their Christmas songs well.

But none of the children suggested the obvious way to tell Santa what they want — by writing a letter.

I guess it’s the Internet age’s effect that makes our little ones forget the simple, faithful U.S. Postal Service.

Santa probably has multiple e-mail addresses by now, and I’m sure he texts.

In fact, these kids think Santa is so modern that he’s shut down his workshop and now gets his toys “out of a store.”

It’s thinking like this that has made one of The Democrat’s annual publications a little harder in the last few years.

Christmas Greetings is a special edition that includes letters to Santa from area children.

But in order to publish the section — which is sure to make adults giggle — we rely on children to submit letters.

And as soon as we make a copy of the letter, we forward it directly to Santa at the North Pole, via the U.S. Postal Service.

Adults can encourage their own children to write letters, or teachers can make it a class project.

We don’t worry a bit about spelling, or even whether the letters face the right direction.

Letter writers can drop off their requests at our office at 503 N. Canal St., or mail them to P.O. Box 1447, Natchez, MS 39121.

Or, if you prefer the modern-Santa way, e-mail them to santa@natchezdemocrat.com.

We’ll need all the letters by Dec. 14, in order to get them to Santa in time for him to go “shopping at the store.”

The special Santa letters publication will come out in the Dec. 20 newspaper.

Be sure to cut our your child or grandchild’s letter for the scrapbook.

Now, I have to get back to work, reporting on very serious matters.

Did someone say they saw the tooth fairy?

Julie Finley can be reached at 601-445-3551 or julie.finley@natchezdemocrat.com.