This is when the Post Office starts reminding people to get their packages and cards out so they’re delivered in time for Christmas.
And that includes the letters kids send to Santa Claus.
Now, these days a lot of us have switched over from paper letters in the mail to text messages, emails, DMs on social media and so on.
But even if the volume of letters has dropped, each one of these messages to St. Nicholas is kind of a gift in its own way.
The phenomenon of sending letters to Santa Claus really got going in the late 19th Century.
Cartoonist Thomas Nast had popularized the modern image of Santa as a jolly, heavy-set bearded fellow who worked at the North Pole and read letters from children about their Christmas wishes.
This was not long after residential mail service expanded in the US, and the cost of sending a letter became affordable to most households.
So, many families started having their kids send letters to Santa through the postal service.
Originally, a lot of these letters were marked as undeliverable and thrown out (!) but when word started to get around, people were mortified that mail sorters weren’t treating these messages with more respect.
Eventually the post office started routing the letters to charity groups, who would send back “replies” from old Kris Kringle.
One group in New York City even sent presents to a few of the kids who wrote in, though it shut down after reports that its head had helped himself to some of the group’s operating funds.
Some of the letters have also ended up in newspapers, and reading them now is a window into history.
You see not only what toys were popular with kids through the decade, but also what daily life was like for youngsters.
Some kids would really open up to Santa about their troubles, from family issues, to World War II and the Great Depression.
A few kids wrote to ask Santa for coal, because they needed it to stay warm in the winter.
Some made those observations you only get from kids, like Riley in 1926 who told Santa, after asking for “a machine gun, candy, apples,” that “I saw your picture in the paper and believe you are getting old.”
And occasionally you find a kid who balances their own personal wants with the good of the world around them.
Like a kid named Travis in 2008, who wrote to Santa to ask for six specific things: world peace, time with family, sick people to heal, snow, one million dollars and Yoshi.
If you’re looking for an attraction worthy of the holiday season, you might head to Williams Bay, Wisconsin, to see the World’s Tallest Glass Tree.
A team of glass-blowers builds the tree outside of Yerkes Observatory, and for ten bucks you can even add a piece of hot glass to the structure yourself.
If you go, for goodness sake don’t throw stones!
A Brief History of Sending a Letter to Santa (Smithsonian)
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