NORTH POLE — Santa Claus is imaginary? Not as far as your child is concerned — and the Postal Service can help you prove he’s real when your child gets a personalized letter from the big guy — complete with a North Pole postmark.

Follow these steps to ensure your children get a response letter from Santa:

• Have your child write a letter to Santa and place it in an envelope addressed to: Santa Claus, North Pole.
• Later, when alone, open the envelope and write a personalized response. To save paper, write the response on the back of the original letter.
• Insert the response letter into an envelope and address it to the child.
• Add the return address: SANTA, NORTH POLE to the envelope.
• Affix a First-Class Mail® stamp, such as a new Winter Berries Forever® stamp to the envelope.
• Place the complete envelope into a larger envelope — preferably a Priority Mail Flat Rate® envelope — with appropriate postage and address it to:

North Pole Postmark
Postmaster
4141 Postmark Drive
Anchorage, AK 99530-9998

Greetings from the North Pole Post Office must be received by the Anchorage, AK, Postmaster no later than Dec. 13. Santa’s helpers at the Postal Service will take care of the rest.

Tips

• When responding as Santa, make the response as personal as possible by highlighting your child’s accomplishments over the past year, for example, helping around the house, receiving good grades in a particular subject at school or participating in community service activities.
• This is a great activity to do at Thanksgiving that the whole family can enjoy, including parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles and other caregivers.

The Greetings from the North Pole Post Office program helps add to the excitement of the holidays and is a great way to get kids interested in letter writing, stamps and penmanship.

How to Write a Letter
Sending a letter to Santa is easy if you know how. The Postal Service is here to help with guides and tips to help kids write and send the best letter ever. All the information you need to write a letter, address an envelope, put on a stamp and send it on its way can be found in the Postal Service’s Holiday Newsroom. These tips are also good all year-round for sending thank you cards, birthday cards, or a letter to Grandma and Grandpa just to say “hi.”

Additional news and information, including all domestic, international and military mailing and shipping deadlines, can also be found at the Holiday Newsroom.

The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.

###