Guest Post: Letters to Santa Program

Guest Post: Katelyn Noack, Mondovi Public Library

What is the program?

Pretty straightforward, it is about having kids (or anyone) write a letter to Santa! Only, Librarian’s KNOW Santa and have been promised that every child will receive a personal response from the North Pole. Pretty cool.

How did you come up with it?

A few years ago, I learned that the United States Postal Service (USPS) does a pretty cool thing where you can mail Santa letters ‘to the North Pole’ AKA Alaska, and the post office will postmark them from the North Pole and mail them back. So instead of your letter having a beautiful stamp saying it was processed in St. Paul (or wherever) it came FROM the North Pole. I wanted to take advantage of this program because I knew it would basically only cost me postage. For all the mailing information please see the link to the USPS website. It includes where to mail the letters and HOW to mail the letters.

https://about.usps.com/holidaynews/letters-from-santa.htm

Quick Background on Previous Years

I have done Letters to Santa for about three years now. The first time it was done directly after Story Time and I mainly had a bunch of blank papers with foam stickers and crayon on it. Live and learn. Then the next year I have Letters to Santa as an all-day drop in station. I designed some fun paper for the attendees to write on and left out instructions. It went well and we had about 30 letters turned in (large for our town!). However, after the program I received feedback from a few participants that it didn’t feel very “special” or “magical” that they were by themselves writing these letters. I took that to heart and made the program more of an event this year, versus a “drop-in”.

What I Did This Year:

First off, I designed a form fill letter instead of a blank sheet. I had a hard time crafting individual responses to an orange crayon squiggle. I also created an optional blank page that could be attached to the letter if the attendee wanted to write more or draw a picture. I also created envelopes to match the letters. I designed everything on Canva and only had to purchase some blank envelopes (no letterhead). Pro Tip: For your responses, unless you LOVE the taste of envelopes, save yourself and get pull seal ones. Trust me. I also created a USPS mailbox out of a Baker and Taylor shipping box for the attendees to put their letters in to “mail them”.  (Blue paint and a hot glue gun)

To make it more “magical” and interactive I had a few other stations as well. There was a snack station and a craft station. For the snack station I made Jell-O jigglers (gluten free, dairy free, nut free, etc. free) out of green and red Jell-O and for the craft station I had the kids make stockings. I made a template and we printed out a bunch on white cardstock and the same number on red cardstock. Before the program the staff cut out all the stockings and they were paired up. The white when on top of the red and they were hole punched all around. Then for the craft attendees decorated the white stocking with crayons, and festive foam stickers. When they were done, they could “sew” their stocking together with yarn – yay for fine motor skills!

Finally, as our last piece of “magic” we had a special visitor come who was going to take the letters back to the North Pole with her! One of our Friends had an elf costume and volunteered to be at the event. It was a wonderful highlight (even if some of the itty-bittys got scared by the costume).

How did it go?

Unfortunately, it did not go well. We had about three families come, and a total of 7 letters turned in. It was a drastic change from the year before. However, the kids who did come had a bunch of fun!

What went wrong?

Here are a few of my theories:

• It was the time. While the drop-in activity may have been “less magical” it gave families the flexibility to stop by when they could. This event ran from 3 PM to 4:30 PM and didn’t seem to work out for many people.
• It was the week of Thanksgiving. Last year we did the program the first week in December, which worked well but I received feedback that some of the kid’s letters did not return until the day AFTER Christmas. (Hey, Alaska is far away!) So, this year I moved it up a week! But it just so happens that we had a late Thanksgiving and therefore the dates coincided, and the program was the Monday before the Holiday. Many people are too busy around the holidays for much extra and that also make have been a factor in low attendance.

Tips/Notes

• If you want to save your hand, you can have the caregiver write a response to their tiny human or at least make them aware of the option.
• Make sure you have a legible return address! I have three siblings all write a variation of the same return address. Yikes. You could have caregivers pre-address the envelopes too if you wished.
• Supplies were paper (which we had), printing (lot of printing), self-seal envelopes (Amazon – 100 for $9.00),  yarn to stitch stockings (which we already had), foam stickers for decorating (Michaels – with coupon I think it was $2.50 for 150 pieces), Jell-O, and postage. This program is more time than cost.

Where are the printables?! GIMME GIMME
Click HERE for printables from this program