Santa’s post office ready for next million letters

(NC) — Since the Canadian post office began delivering Santa’s mail to his special postal code – H0H 0H0 – the North Pole post office has received more than 17.4 million letters. Prepared for its next million, Santa’s post office is open and ready to receive letters – and those important wish lists – from children all around the world.

The 2008 holiday season kept volunteer postal elves busy with helping Santa to answer more than 1.4 million letters, as well 63,000 e-mails – an increase of 40 per cent over the year before.

“Santa loves to receive mail,” says Louise Chenier, Canada Post’s chief postal elf, “and a very dedicated group of postal elves – more than 11,000 of them – are proud to help Santa with the task.”

Letters are replied to in the language they are written. In 2008 that was 27 languages, including Braille, notes Chenier.

It’s believed that groups of volunteer postal elves began helping Santa with his mail as far back as the early 1970s. By 1982, the grass-roots initiatives were nationalized to Canada Post employee volunteers across the country. And in 2002, Santa went high-tech with Santa’s Corner on canadapost.ca, allowing children to send their letters by e-mail if they wished.

Children can write to Santa at:

Santa Claus
North Pole H0H 0H0
CANADA

Elf Chenier reminds all of Santa’s pen pals to be sure to include their return address so Santa can write back.

Children can e-mail Santa by visiting canadapost.ca/santascorner.

www.newscanada.com