Every year , as temperatures lead off to cool , letters to Santa Claus start twine in to post offices around the body politic , filled with compliments lists and question from child . But since Santa himself tends to be too busy to wield all his mail , the duty fall to a widely - ranging group of volunteers , postal workers , and folks filled with the vacation spirit . Mental Floss spoke to a few of these dedicated someone to find out some of the secret of answeringSanta ’s correspondence .
1. SANTA HAS MANY ADDRESSES.
There are legion Santa home office in the United States alone . If a kid drop a letter address to “ Santa Claus ” in the mail service , it will likely terminate up at their local post role — and at hundreds of stake offices around the commonwealth , the postal employee answer Santa ’s mail themselves .
“ It ’s the benignity of our own employees , ” Darleen Reid - DeMeo , senior public relation illustration for the United States Postal Service ( USPS ) , state Mental Floss . But the letter may also be forwarded to the nearestOperation Santa Claussite , which is go by the Post Office and allows members of the world to adopt and answer as many letter as they like .
Any berth office can sign up to be an Operation Santa Claus branch , if the local postmaster and employees check to follow the USPS rules for the political program and volunteer their time to run it . Currently there are 15 official branches throughout the U.S. The political platform is voluntary for the local employee and postmaster , so any post office can decide to do it one yr and not the next .
2. SANTA HAS DIFFERENT WAYS OF ANSWERING.
If a letter isaddressed specificallyto “ Santa Claus , 4141 Postmark Dr , Anchorage , Alaska , " and includes a ego - address , stamped envelope , sender can get a reply with a “ North Pole ” postmark . “ That ’s for people who want to answer on behalf of Santa — for parents who want their child to get a line from Santa himself , ” Reid - DeMeo says . If a kid indite a missive to Santa and include the metropolis “ Santa Claus , IN ” on the envelope , it will go to the Santa ClausMuseum & Villagein that city , where the letter of the alphabet are responded to by volunteers with a note postmark by the metropolis of Santa Claus .
3. KIDS WRITE TENS OF THOUSANDS OF LETTERS.
While it ’s hard to get an precise numeral of the letters sent , Gail Branham , client relations coordinator and Chief Elf at the USPS , who manage Operation Santa Claus , guess that they receive about 50,000 letter a year at the New York branch alone . Emily Weisner Thompson , director of the Santa Claus Museum in Indiana and source of the booksLetters to Santa ClausandBut What if There ’s No Chimney?,estimates they get about 20,000 letters p.a. .
4. IT’S AN ALL-HANDS PROCESS.
With such a punishing book , those working to respond Santa ’s postal service need plenty of assistance . On any given Clarence Shepard Day Jr. during the time of year at the Santa Claus Museum , there are seven to 10 volunteers ( a.k.a . “ ELF ” ) opening and responding to letters throughout the day . “ The few who are here most days of the hebdomad are really efficient and they can pump them out , ” Thompson tells Mental Floss . Every dark in December , the museum has at least one group — a small business , mellow school students , elementary school teacher , and so on — who come in to respond a stack of letter over several hour . All told , Thompson estimates they have about 250 volunteers throughout the month .
At the USPS , it ’s a similarly divers group of answerers lending a script . “ For some companies , it ’s part of their holiday communications protocol , ” Branham says . “ They get letter for their organisation and deliver it among the coworkers . It ’s a group movement for a lot of mass . ” She trace a mathematical group of “ big , beefy guys , ” who came in to theJames A. Farley Post Office(home base for New York City ’s Operation Santa Claus ) last year but were not part of any particular organization . “ They said , we just go to game , go to the bar together , and now we answer Santa letters , ” Branham say . “ They sat , register the letters , went shopping , bought box in the anteroom , paid for their postage — they were here all daylight . ”
5. IT’S A PEEK INTO WHAT’S HOT.
Answering Santa letters gives one a good signified of the most popular toys and gifts of the year . Thompson signal to the baby monkey Fingerlings , Shopkins toy dog figures of grocery store items , superhero action figures , and Hoverboards as a few of the pop items in letters to the Santa Claus Museum this year .
From what Branham ’s seen , “ Everybody want an i - something : an iPhone , an iPad , an iWatch . ” But no matter what the requests , she say , “ There ’s a varsity letter that will attract to [ everyone]—some people have deep pockets , some do n’t . But they take their sentence and look for something they can fulfill that ’s within their substance . They want to participate and avail someone . ”
6. SOME LETTERS DON’T ASK FOR ANYTHING.
“ We get dewy-eyed requests , and sometimes letter that do n’t even have a request , like , ‘ Santa , I make out you , I think you ’re dandy , ’ ” Branham pronounce .
Homer A. Thompson draw get “ some very self-examining letters , ” such as a recent one where the tike write , “ Dear Santa , I ’m really struggling with release 10 this year . ” Another one read “ I ’ve been honorable , please total to my house , I ’d really like my dad to be smarter . ”
“ There ’s certainly a perceptual experience that the creation is increasingly mercenary and in some ways that ’s true , but there is a lot of mail that comes through that is kids thinking of others , ” Thompson adds , giving model of kids asking on behalf of their siblings or parent or gloss on poverty and wider difficulties .
In other cases , kids will ask Santa about his life and Mrs. Claus , or draw images of him and his world . In some cases , the writers will even include a gift from them to the holiday saint .
“ It ’s amazing to see what makes it through the chain armour sometimes , ” Thompson says . “ They ’ll dazzle the gasbag sometimes , or you open up one up and 20 pounds of glitter falls out . It ’s nice when they take the time to decorate it . ”
7. IT INVOLVES A LOT OF SECURITY MEASURES.
With so many gifts and so much private information involved , Operation Santa Claus has put a number of hard-and-fast dominion in place . In 2006 , the organization required that every savoir-faire be couch to ascertain none of the kids ’ locations are seen by the member of the public . Instead , each letter is assigned an anonymous phone number . They also set about requiring bestower to present a pic ID when piece up a letter . When donor cast off packages off , the postal employee match the anonymous turn with the address where the natural endowment are supposed to be deliver . To quash twin gifts and track which letters are adopted , the USPS also has created a shared database where each varsity letter is assigned a figure and tracked .
“ Our No . 1 goal before anything is to protect the letter - writers ’ personal selective information , ” Reid - DeMeo articulate .
8. THEY’RE GOING DIGITAL.
mathematical process Santa Claus has take on its approach a step further this yr , with the launching ofDeliverCheer.com , where those concerned in answering Santa ’s chain armor can go online and adopt a alphabetic character from a New York City small fry .
An outside contractor spread , redacts any personally identifiable information , and upload the letters . The contractor has been “ step in ” by the postal service to open up the letters , which then go to the postal “ elves ” in reality employed by the USPS , who “ check it twice ” to be certain all personal info has been removed before pushing a button and move digital . If the project is successful in New York , the USPS hopes to roll out DeliverCheer.com across the nation next year , take away much of the manual work and expand the Operation Santa political platform .
“ For 105 years , we ’ve been doing it manually — multitude are physically spread out and copying the letters , redacting them and inputting selective information into a database and with this new pilot , we ’ve get rid of the manual treatment of the letters so it ’s all done digitally , ” Reid - DeMeo allege . “ Anybody can go on there and read letters , but if you decide to sweep up , you click the clitoris . ”
9. THEY HAVE A LEGACY TO PROTECT.
talk for Santa carries significant responsibleness .
“ To think that you ’re participating in something that ’s 105 yr old is a huge responsibility , ” Branham says . “ People gestate to follow here every twelvemonth — this is their custom , they work their kids , when their Kyd become adults they want to lend their kids and see Santa letters . ”
It ’s also an unverbalized requirement for any person suffice Santa ’s post to “ maintain the trick , ” as Thompson describes it , speaking of Santa as a substantial , if hard - to - tholepin - down , material body .
“ When a reporter asks , ‘ How do you find about answering these letters ? ’ the volunteers are honorable about give voice it as , ‘ It ’s great to be able to assist Santa out — he ’s so busy . ’ They ’re all Santa believers too . ”
