The Christmas Spirit in Letters

A hundred and nine Christmases ago, eight-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon wrote to the editor of New York’s Sun newspaper asking if there really is a Santa Claus.  She said that her friends had told her there isn’t while her father had said that there is if it’s in the Sun newspaper.

The reply was an editorial that had since been translated into different languages and had become the most reprinted and quoted editorial in history.   Its title had also entered the English language as an idiom.

‘Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus,’ wrote Francis Pharcellus Church, the editorial writer.  ‘He exists certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy.’

This season young letter writers are writing again, to Santa Claus himself.  Aside from Virginia’s question, children the world over write to Santa to ask for gifts that range from the toys they see on TV to a cutout advertisement of a Rolex watch sent by a boy who enclosed a note that he has been good ‘almost everyday.’  He was sure of his goodness, unlike another boy who asked, ‘What list am I on, naughty or nice?’

Children also asked for gifts for their brothers and sisters, but one asked for a gift for her aunt whose house had burned down.  A girl wanted a bell from Santa’s sleigh while a boy requested for a picture of Santa and his elves to show to his non-believing friends that he is true.  Another asked for a video camera ‘so he can scare his brother.’

A good number asked for puppies, but were outdone by a little girl who wanted 101 Dalmatians.  ‘Please forgive me my wrong mistakes,’ a boy wrote.  Another said that she has no money and seeks Santa’s help to get things for her family, ‘and just put my name on them so they know I am thoughtful.’

There are touching letters from orphans who ask Santa to bring their mothers back for Christmas.  A seven-year-old boy wrote that he and his infant sister are homeless but that he doesn’t need anything as he can take care of himself.  He just wished for Santa to send Pampers and a blanket for his baby sister.

In the US, the more known hubs of Santa Claus letters are the post offices of New York, a small town in Indiana named Santa Claus, and Fairbanks, Alaska where letters addressed to the North Pole find their way.

A rare US postal service exception is when stampless letters get through, as it did in Fairbanks where volunteers read an average of 120 thousand letters from 26 countries. Letters with return addresses are answered, postmarked North Pole with Santa’s face.

Once, a stampless mail arrived at the post after 3 years.   Inside the envelope that had no return address was a thousand-dollar money order and this note, ‘If you are who you say you are, you’ll put this to good use.’

The New York and Santa Claus, Indiana post offices started their Santa Claus operations in the 1920s.  New York’s began when postal clerks chipped in money to buy gifts for children whose Santa letters ended in the dead-letter section. Today hundreds of volunteers drop by to sift through letters, buy the gifts, and send them by post.

The Santa Claus town postmaster in Indiana didn’t want to disappoint the children.  He answered letters that came to his post.  Help came the following year through a volunteer from another town.  Some 80 years after, dozens of volunteers called Santa’s Elves continue to reply to children everywhere.  The post has framed favorite letters, one of which asked Santa Claus ‘to make my father smarter.’

Finland, too, is a hub of Santa Claus letters. Korvantunturi, Santa’s residence, in Sayukoski, Finland, now has over 6 million letters from children in 150 countries.

Yes, Virginia, answering children has come a long way.  If there were no Santa Claus, Church’s editorial went on, ‘there would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence,’ and ‘the eternal light which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.’  Church ends his answer by thanking God that Santa Claus lives forever, ‘to make glad the heart of childhood.’

(Postscript: A Merry Christmas to you and the child in you! Santa Claus addresses are at PO Box 202, Santa Claus, Indiana, 47570, USA, and Santa Claus, FIN-96930 Arctic Circle, Finland.  Sorry, I don’t know of any Santa address in the Philippine post.)

(24 Dec 2006)