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- Written in response to a letter by eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon asking whether Santa Claus was real, the editorial was first published in the New York newspaper The Sun on September 21, 1897.
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Dec 21, 2015 · History. This Is How Letters to Santa Were First Delivered by the U.S. Mail. 4 minute read. Clyde Snipes hands a letter Santa Claus in South Carolina on Dec. 24, 1932 Gamma-Keystone / Getty...
- Merrill Fabry
Dec 3, 2015 · The earliest Santa letters are similarly didactic, usually coming from St. Nicholas, rather than written to him. The minister Theodore Ledyard Cuyler recalled receiving “an autograph letter...
Dec 16, 2018 · In 1897 eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon wrote the New York Sun asking if Santa were real; the response that was published has stood the test of time Latest U.S.
- 4 min
- Santa Used to Send Letters, Not Receive them.
- Originally, Kids Didn’T Mail them.
- It Used to Be Illegal to Answer them.
- A Cartoon Helped Spread The Popularity of Writing to Santa.
- Newspapers Used to Answer them.
- Charity Groups Fought them.
- Kids Don’T Always Address Them to The North Pole.
- Not Everyone Answering The Letters Is Squeaky-Clean.
- The Post Office Tracks Them in A Database.
- Santa Has An Email Address.
Santa letters originated as missives children received, rather than sent, with parents using them as tools to counsel kids on their behavior. For example, Fanny Longfellow (wife of poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow) wrote letters to her children every season, weighing in on their actions over the previous year (“I am sorry I sometimes hear you are no...
Before the Post Office Department (as the USPS was known until 1971) presented a solution for getting Santa letters to their destination, children came up with some creative ways to get their messages where they needed to go. Kids in the U.S. would leave them by the fireplace, where they were believed to turn into smoke and go up to Santa. Scottish...
Kids had another good reason not to send their letters through the mail: Santa couldn’t answer them. Santa’s mail used to go to the Dead Letter Office, along with any other letters addressed to mythical or undeliverable addresses. Though many individuals offered to answer Santa’s letters, they were technically not allowed to, since opening someone ...
If one work can be credited with helping kickstart the practice of sending letters to Santa Claus, it’s Thomas Nast’s illustration published in the December 1871 issue of Harper’s Weekly. The image shows Santa seated at his desk and processing his mail, sorting items into stacks labeled “Letters from Naughty Children’s Parents” and “Letters from Go...
Before the Post Office Department changed its rules to allow the release of Santa letters, local newspapers encouraged children to mail letters to them directly. In 1901, the Monroe City Democrat in Monroe City, Missouri, offered “two premiums” to the best letter. In 1922, the Daily Ardmoreite, in Ardmore, Oklahoma, offered prizesto the three best ...
When the Post Office Department changed the rules on answering Santa’s letters, many established charities protested, complaining that the needs of the children writing the letters could not be verified, and that it was a generally inefficient way to provide resources to the poor. A typical complaint came from the Charity Organization Society, whos...
While most children sending letters today direct them to the North Pole, for the first few decades of Santa letters this was just one of many potential destinations. Other locations where children imagined St. Nick based his operations included Iceland, Ice Street, Cloudville, or “Behind the Moon.” Exceptions can still be found today. While most U....
While many of the people and organizations who took on the project of answering Santa letters are upstanding, happy folks, some of the more prominent efforts to answer Santa’s mail have had sad endings. In Philadelphia, Elizabeth Phillips played “Miss Santa Claus” to the city’s poor in the early 1900s, but shortly after losing the right to answer S...
In an effort to formalize the answering of Santa letters, in 2006 the U.S. Postal Service established national policy guidelines for Operation Santa, run out of individual post offices throughout the country. The rules required those seeking to answer letters to appear in person and present photo ID. Three years later, USPS added the rule that all ...
Always one to evolve with the times, Santa now answers email. Kids can reach him through a number of outlets, such as Letters to Santa, Email Santa.com, and Elf HQ. Macy’s encourages kids to email St. Nick as part of its annual "Believe" campaign (children can also go the old-fashioned route and drop a letter at the red mailbox at their nearest Mac...
Dec 22, 2020 · By Kelly Wynne. Culture Writer. The story of Santa Claus seems to be a tale as old as time, but the Christmas icon actually has his roots in a real-life person—the Catholic figure of St. Nicholas.
Santa Claus (also known as Father Christmas, Saint Nicholas, Saint Nick, Kris Kringle, Santa and Santy) is a legendary figure [1] originating in Western Christian culture who is said to bring gifts during the late evening and overnight hours on Christmas Eve. He is said to accomplish this with the aid of Christmas elves, who make the toys in ...
Feb 16, 2010 · The legend of Santa Claus can be traced back hundreds of years to a monk named St. Nicholas. It is believed that Nicholas was born sometime around A.D. 280 in Patara, near Myra in modern-day...
