Mail carriers all over the world are busy at Christmas as they deliver holiday greeting cards and gifts for millions of people and businesses, but perhaps no post offices in the country are as busy as the ones in North Pole, Alaska and Santa Claus, Indiana. Each year, these post offices adorn hundreds of thousands of packages and envelopes with special pictorial postmarks. The postmarks proudly proclaim that the mail has come from the North Pole or from Santa Claus.
The service is free, and if you’d like to add a little extra magic to your child’s letter from Santa, all you need is an extra stamp and envelope and a little bit of time.
Here’s what you need to do. Take your child’s Santa letter and put it in an envelope addressed to your child with a regular stamp on it. Then take THAT envelope and put it in a larger one. Address this outer envelope to one of the following addresses, depending on whether you want a North Pole postmark or Santa postmark.
Santa Claus Postmark
Postmaster
Santa Claus Station
Santa Claus, IN 47579-9998
North Pole Christmas Cancellation
Postmaster
5400 Mail Trail
Fairbanks, AK 99709-9999
Now affix the proper postage and send your envelope. When it arrives at the post office, the postal service employees will open the outer envelope, postmark the inner one and send it on its merry way.
Ho, ho, ho!
