Every Christmas Eve since I can remember, my siblings and I went through the whole routine in hopes of enticing Santa to make a drop-off at our home. We decorated our windows with lights, trimmed the tree, hung a wreath on the front door, put out a plate of cookies and glass of milk for Santa, and of course, all four of us kids wrote letters to Santa explaining how we were “good” to ensure gifts in the morning.
Christmas morning always began with reading Santa’s letters out loud, before breakfast, before opening gifts or any other activity. The letter was a summary of events and activities along with parental commentary.
If you look in our stockings, deep in the toes, you will find crinkled letters from almost every year like a record of our lives from long, long ago. It is a 50 year chronology of my life from elementary school, high school, and college, advice about friends, to career choices, boyfriends and husband, kids, marital wisdom, child rearing and a bible verse for encouragement of my spiritual life. After all, Santa is omnipotent, knowing if you have been bad or good. “You better be good for goodness sake!”
In keeping with the tradition, every Christmas morning we still gather together by the tree to hear the reading of the “letters”. Now that I have gotten older, Santa’s letters have a different twist. Instead of my letters coming from the North Pole, they are coming from Los Angeles, from my adult children who are signing it as Santa.
Receiving Santa Letters is a cherished tradition, but there are many alternative ways to give and receive for the young’uns or the young at heart. If you do an online search for LETTERS FROM SANTA, you will find numerous websites that will do the honors for the cost between $5 - $20 per letter. Some companies include postcards, stickers of Santa, Christmas money, or perhaps a small package.
For the past 100 years, the US Postal Service offers children and families SANTA MAIL. Over one-half million letters per year are received by the US mail. In return postal workers and volunteers write back and frequently send a gift off their wish list. The letter is postmarked from the North Pole, Alaska with a Santa Forever stamp. Because of the volume of letters the post office gets, the cut-off date is Dec. 15 to get a response before Christmas day. According to the post office, there is an additional million letters that don’t get answered.
Once I heard about Operation Santa, I drove down to the main post office and picked up a stack of letters. There is a good percent sent from kids, but surprisingly so many are written by a concerned adult: a parent, a neighbor, an aunt explaining how there is no money for decorations or gifts.
Here is a sample letter. It says, “Dear Santa, mi name is Marcia. I been a good girl all year. I always help my brother to talk and play I help Daniel to feed his dog. I ate all my food I showed my brother to don’t be scared to trick or treating, Can you “PLEASE” bring me a purple unicorn. Thank you very much.” You know that I am ready to drive all over town looking for her one request, a purple unicorn!
My City Watch, Deal and Discount tip of the week is to give a gift that lasts all year long, write or buy online Santa Letters for your loved ones. If you want to go that extra step, you could volunteer through the post office’s OPERATION SANTA 2014 at the main Los Angeles facility on S. Central Avenue to pick up letters to respond to their holiday wish as Santa Claus himself.
I could not think of a better way to get into the holiday spirit than being Santa spreading holiday cheer. I always love receiving letters from SANTA, but I love even more is writing words of wisdom on Santa’s behalf.
ENJOY!
Information:
U.S. POST OFFICE OPERATION SANTA
Sue Helmy has plenty of tricks up her sleeve. She is currently providing superb concierge duties at the Building and Safety Division of the City of Beverly Hills. She is active in countless church and civic organizations and spends every minute she can spare dancing to the zumba beat.
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 100
Pub: Dec 12, 2014
