Who helps Santa with all those letters?

Do your kids still send letters to Santa Claus? I’m talking real letters. Envelope. Postage. The whole deal, not an email or text.

Should those letters not make it all the way to the North Pole? What happens to them?

Santa gets to as many of the letters as he can, but Santa gets so busy this time of year he doesn’t have the time to answer all of them. Fortunately, he has a lot of helpers in the Postal Service that read the ones he can’t get to, and some of those helpers even make good on the requests, just to give Santa a little boost.

Linda Sundstrom is the Postmaster in Troy, Idaho, near Moscow. She volunteers her time to help Santa with some of his letters, including many from the Seattle-area which find their way to her. She reads them and sends letters back to the kids. “It’s just really fun,” she said. “That’s the whole reason for the season. It’s not what we get. It’s what we give. It just brings such a joy to know that you are making a difference in somebody else’s life.”

Last year, she came across a desperate letter written by a couple with a young child.

“They were on tough times,” Sundstrom said. “All they wanted was something for their child, and it just really tugged at my heartstrings.”

So Sundstrom called up some friends at a volunteer organization and helped Santa give this family a special Christmas.

“We filled two big boxes of stuff and sent it to this young family,” she said. “It’s just such a good feeling.”

You can volunteer to help Santa make good on some of the letters. Operation Santais still in business, though Sundstrom said it’s a little late to try and help this year. Those special helpers need to fill out some special forms and have Santa check their backgrounds.

If you want to make sure Santa responds to your letter, be sure to include a return address. Santa might be able to see you when you’re sleeping, but he needs an address to pinpoint your house.