‘Dear Santa’ Mail Handled With Care
Dear Santa:
Well, this year I would very much like to have an Eye Toy for Playstation 2. I really want one A LOT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! But, for some reason if you can’t get one for me, I suppose I wouldn’t have a problem receiving SSX3, Backyard Basketball, or The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron Boy Genius Rescue Jet Fusion for Playstation 2. I don’t care which one of those games you get me if you can’t get an Eye Toy. You can choose which one.
Ps. Here are some M&Ms; for you and Mrs. Claus.
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Ah, Christmas -- nothing like it to warm the soul. Or, if you happen to work at the post office, to make you smile. Especially if your duties include reading the thousands of letters to Santa that arrive each year.
“We get three types,” says Linda Dalton, manager of consumer affairs for the Santa Ana regional office. “Some are cute, some are sad -- some are just greedy.”
Her role: overseeing the six-person staff that reads and sorts them all, then inviting volunteers to grant the wishes of those deemed most deserving.
It’s a tradition that’s been going on since 1912 when the postmaster general first directed that letters addressed simply to “Santa” or “Santa Claus, North Pole” be picked up and delivered, providing they bear the right postage. He also gave postal workers permission to turn the missives over to philanthropic groups or individuals who wished to respond.
Those who do wish to respond, however, don’t have to journey to the Arctic. Instead, in Orange County anyway, they need only visit the Postal Service’s Sunflower Avenue service center, where Dalton and her team of helpers carefully place each letter into one of two bins: “Cute” or “Needy.”
(There’s no “greedy” bin, they say, because the letters that would go there are usually also cute.)
Other areas have similar programs. Gladys Davis, a consumer affairs manager in Los Angeles’ main post office, intercepts 200 to 300 letters a day bound for the North Pole. Davis and an assistant sort the letters into “Spanish,” “Wish” and “Needy” bins.
The letters pour in from all over the county, she says. Some include clippings from catalogs, detailing specific wishes. Many writers attach pictures of themselves or drawings of their families. Davis turns over the most heartfelt letters to movie studios, doctors, attorneys, church groups or ordinary people.
Sometimes, the tear-jerkers find their way to her house.
“My husband said, ‘Don’t bring another letter home; I can’t take it,’ ” Davis said.
Ten volunteers help sort at Riverside’s main office, whose employees sponsor two families a year. The rest are handed off to philanthropic groups.
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Dear Santa:
Sorry I didn’t mail my list earlier. I guess I just didn’t have the time. I am not going to write all of my list out because I have 30 things on it!!!! Here are the most important things that I want & I want my own computer more than a hamster....
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About 4,000 letters arrive at the Santa Ana facility each year, Dalton says, generally beginning about Thanksgiving and tapering off near the first of the year. In poring over them, she and her crew try to read between the lines.
“You can tell if they’re really needy by what they ask for,” explains Celeste Jaime, one of Dalton’s assistants. “If they ask for blankets, shoes, jackets and food, you figure they’re needy. One kid asked for $10,000 and said he needed it by Dec. 14 because that’s when he was going to the Bahamas.”
Needless to say, that one ended up in the non-needy bin.
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Dear Santa,
I was very good this year. I would really want a boxing gloves for Christmas. I will leave out cookies and milk.”
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Not all of Santa’s correspondents are minors. This year’s batch of letters, for instance, includes pleas from a 62-year-old man in a group home for new socks and underwear (and conveniently including his size); a 28-year-old woman wishing for presents for her husband and children; and an 18-year-old woman begging for a new makeup kit.
“A lot of women ask Santa for dates or husbands,” assistant Roberta Katzer says. So far, according to staffers (all but one of whom is female), none of those requests have been granted. Why? Because “there aren’t any extras around,” one staffer explains.
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Dear Santa,
How are you doing? I just wrote to say hi. And if you could bring me a printer, and the connection for a laptop so we could have CDs and tickets to a Lakers game. I only need 5 or 4 tickets....”
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The Santa stand-ins come from all walks of life, Dalton says. One high school English class showed up because their teacher had assigned them to answer the jolly guy’s letters. A 95-year-old businessman arrives every year in a chauffeur-driven limousine to pick out dozens of notes from needy children whose wishes he fulfills. And Laurel Regan, an insurance consultant from Orange, said she started her letter-answering tradition two years ago by responding to a plea from a pair of Anaheim siblings in need.
“I went to their house and said that Santa had read their letter and sent me to make deliveries,” she recalled. “They were very surprised and very happy. I got a real good feeling that I could be there to help.”
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Dear Santa,
Could you please bring our presents early on the 23rd, because we will be in New York on Christmas Day.... I have been very good this year.
Dalton says she loves what she does. “It’s great,” she says. “The letters humanize our job. They allow you to see the good side of kids, too -- how generous some can be. We look forward to this all year.”
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Dear Santa,
I’m sending you another letter because my Aunt Ana bought me the “hoverdisc” I asked you for. So instead of the “hoverdisc” can you bring me a digi draw and heelys size 4 please? ... Oh, and so far I have been a little bad. But I’m not on the naughty list.”
Dalton and her team say they won’t be checking it twice.
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Times staff writer Dave McKibben contributed to this report.
