You’ll learn a lot from the mouths of babes.

No, not the kind any male readers in their late teens must dream about. I’m talking about anyone between the ages of say, 5 and 12. That’s the ages when toys are toys — trinkets or electronics that can be replaced within a year by the next fad action figure or video game.

I had the duty of processing the holiday desires of some of these babes, these children, over the past week or so as our letters to Santa Claus were finalized for publication. They run in Wednesday’s edition.

Children haven’t changed much since I came up in the ‘80s. They still want video games and electronics. These days, the games resemble action/adventure films rather than the rudimentary quick-in, quick-out games I’d pop into my old Atari system. Pac-Man or Dig Dug, anyone?

Children of hunters and other fans of the outdoors wanted rifles and the bullets that go with them. More girls are taken on hunting trips now than ever before, but most of the letters assigned to me that outlined light artillery under the tree were from boys. My only hunting trip with dad came at age 13 or so. Squirrels were plentiful in the palmetto bushes of rural St. John Parish, and he found one. Trouble was, I didn’t know that as I stood on the other side of a thicket of bushes. The can of Vienna sausage I had in my hand ended up about 50 feet in the air when he fired a shot. I stuck to my first outdoors-related love of fishing after that. Rods and reels are easier on the ears.

Across the board, Apple should be proud of our youngsters. The tech giant might even want to consider building a distribution center of some sort here. Why? Because 100 percent of the letters assigned to me that noted a desire for a cellphone under the tree wanted an iPhone. Not one of the little authors of letters assigned to me wanted a Samsung, LG, Sprint, bag phone of the ‘80s, none of that. Talk about market penetration.

Whether it was cultural staples like hunting or fishing, the hippest fashion doll for girls or the latest installment of a video game that might be rated M for mature, the ideas that birthed those desires started in the same place mine did at that age. If I saw it on TV or someone else who had one, I wanted it. Football gear? They look to dad for that, just as I looked to dad for mine. Mom made sure I could read; hence the children’s dictionary I had under the tree at age four.

It was once told to me children look to their parents as mini-gods, in the sense they will mimic that guidance whether good or bad. With that idea as a guide, I rate one letter to appear with a few hundred others most memorable and perhaps best of them all. The female author, no older than about 8-years old, simply says since Jesus received only gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh, no one on Earth should receive more than three gifts apiece. Her letter goes on to say Jesus is the reason for the season — a fact, she says, that isn’t remembered enough.

Forget that spellings in the letters are kept pristine, which means they run precisely as the children write them. That little girl’s parents must be doing the right thing.

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Danny Barrett Jr. is a reporter and can be reached by email at danny.barrett@vicksburgpost.com or by phone at 601-636-4545.