USPS Now Accepting Letters to Santa

The US Postal Service is now accepting letters to Santa.

Letters will be posted at USPSOperationSanta.com for adoption. Hawaii residents are encouraged to go online beginning Nov. 29 to adopt letters submitted to USPS Operation Santa to help a child have a happy holiday.

“With so many island families struggling due to financial or health issues related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and its economic impacts, some parents may not be able to fulfill their children’s holiday wishes this year,” USPS stated in a press release. “That’s where USPS Operation Santa comes in.”

In 2020, more than 23,000 Santa letters submitted to the program were adopted nationwide, including 140 here in Hawaiʻi.

To participate in the program as a potential holiday gift recipient, all children need to do is write a letter to Santa, put it in an envelope with a First-Class Mail Forever stamp, include their complete return address, and send it to the USPS Operation Santa workshop address:

Santa Claus
123 Elf Road
North Pole 88888

Letters must be postmarked by Dec. 10, 2021, and will be uploaded to the USPS Operation Santa website through Dec. 15 for potential adoption.

Here are some characteristics of a good letter to Santa:

• It’s legible
• It has a return address on both the letter and the envelope; make sure to include the full return address — apartment number, directional information (i.e., E Main St, Apt 103) and ZIP Code
• It has specific asks—including sizes, styles, colors, titles & names
• It is addressed correctly
• It has a postage stamp

When someone writes a letter, it is opened by Santa’s postal elves, and for safety reasons, all personally identifiable information of the letter writer is removed (i.e., last name, address, ZIP Code) and uploaded to USPSOperationSanta.com for adoption.

There is no guarantee that letters submitted to the program will be adopted.

Letters uploaded online can be filtered by state. Details on how to adopt a Santa letter and a history of the program are available here.