Santa’s Mail

Twenty-one years ago in 1974, three employees of Canada Post Corporation in Montreal decided to reply to the hundred or so letters that Santa Claus had received that year. The next year the news was out and Santa Claus received even more mail, so much so that the three chums had their hands full. They asked their colleagues to help them handle this agreeable task.

  In time, the situation snowballed. In the end, Canada Post Corporation established a national program and reserved a postal code exclusively for Santa Claus in 1983. Santa very much likes his postal code (HOH OHO) because you have to laugh to say it.

Last year (1994), more than 13,000 current and retired employees of Canada Post used their free time to reply to more than a million letters addressed to Santa Claus. Since the replies were written as much as possible in the same language as the children’s letters, Santa Claus’ assistants wrote letters in some 20 languages as well as in Braille. Santa Claus also receives moving letters from children affected by illness, divorced or unemployed parents or, worse still, by war. Psychiatrists at Saint Justine Hospital for Children in Montreal volunteer to answer letters which require special attention.