Letters To Santa

Location: United States Postal Service

Date: Wednesday, December 11, 2013; 12:00-1:00 pm

“Some nights the sky wept stars that quickly floated and disappeared into the darkness before our wishes could meet them.”

-          Ishmael Beah

I remember Christmas mornings as a kid.  It was the most exciting day for me…more so than my birthday.  The reason was presents.  I mean, I got presents for birthdays, but Christmas presents were always waiting for me, right when I woke up.  We never had a Christmas tree, but my parents used to put my present on my bed, or sometimes under the pillow.  The first thing I did upon waking was find the present, open it up and immediately make a wish for what I wanted for the next year.  Yeah, I was like that.  Years went by and wishes to Santa became less frequent, till they just stopped.  That was until I discovered Macy’s ‘Believe’ program.  Last year I saw how much wishes to Santa matter to people.  How much people want to believe, and it certainly made a believer out of me.  As I searched to find more about the program, I came across something else, something even bigger, something that has been a tradition for over 100 years.  The ‘United States Postal Services’ ‘Letters To Santa’ program. 

The letters

The website which has the heading, “Delivering the Holidays, Delivering Dreams”, goes on to say, “Although USPS began receiving letters to Santa Claus more than 101 years ago, its involvement was made official in 1912 when Postmaster General Frank Hitchcock authorized postal employees and citizens to respond to the letters.  Today, the popular holiday program is known nationwide as Letters to Santa. The exception is New York City, where the city’s own “Operation Santa,” the largest in the country, responds to more than 500,000 letters each year. Thousands of volunteers work with Post Offices to respond to letters from children of all ages listing their holiday wishes.”  The letters usually come addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole, Alaska”, though they typicvally remain in the area where they were mailed.  People who want to “adopt” these letters can go to a Post Office, select one or more letters to take with them, and then try to fulfill the wishes of the child with a gift.  They can then bring the gift back to the same Post Office, pay the postage for the package, and then hand over to the postal employee who will mail it to the family who had sent the letter.  For obvious reasons, the child’s address is blacked out on the letter. 

For the boy

The Chicago location was at the main Post Office and I took a trip there over lunch.  It is an impressive building, and I felt as if I was entering an historical landmark rather than a Post Office.  I went up the escalator and on my right saw a long table with stacks upon stacks of letters.  They were separated by number of kids per family, gender etc.  I looked around and spotted some other people already going through the letters.  I picked up a bunch from both; boys and girls stack and sat down at a table to read.  Most of the letters were written either by the child or from their perspective, but all of them were wishes that one would make to Santa.  I avoided requests for clothes, because well…I have difficulty selecting clothes for myself, let alone for kids!  I also passed on requests for some of the fancier presents such as ‘PlayStation’.  I ended up selecting letters from a 4 year old boy and a 2 month old girl.  Both had requested for toys and that was something I could handle.

For the girl

The next day I went to ‘Target’, which was fast becoming a go-to place for such activities.  It is where I had picked up presents for my airport visits with ‘Make-A-Wish’ as well as a recent shopping spree for a ‘Night Ministry’ “stocking stuffers” program for toddlers.  The boy’s letter had mentioned that he liked cars and so I picked up some ‘Matchbox’ car’s collection, with construction vehicles – boys are obsessed with those – and police cars.  For the girl I did a combination of a doll, a bib, rattle toy etc. and quickly realized that one can easily get carried away with all the choices for infants.  I got some holiday boxes and after packing the toys in them, returned back to the main Post Office.  I handed the boxes, along with postage, to the lady managing the letters and she thanked me for participating in the program.  I said it was they who were doing a noble job as were the several other people going through the letters.  It was obvious that not everyone’s wishes were going to be answered…not even close.  And while that was a real shame, there would also be children who would receive something from Santa this Christmas.  For even if one person gets their wish granted, I would consider this program a success.  Based on the number of people I saw participating, it was going to be a wonderful holiday for many and I was most certainly glad to have had an opportunity to participate.  Who knew that 'USPS' would also join the ranks of the numerous heroes that I have encountered through this.