Letter writing
Writing letters to Santa Claus has been a Christmas tradition for children for many years. These letters normally contain a wishlist of toys and assertions of good behavior. Some social scientists have found that boys and girls write different types of letters. Girls generally write longer but more polite lists and express the nature of Christmas more in their letters than in letters written by boys. Girls also request gifts for other people on a more frequent basis [Otnes, Kim, and Kim, 20-21].
Many postal services allow children to send letters to Santa Claus pleading their good behavior and requesting gifts; these letters may be answered by postal workers or other volunteers. Canada Post has a special postal code for letters to Santa Claus, and since 1982 over 13,000 Canadian postal workers have volunteered to write responses. His address is: Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada, H0H 0H0 [1] (see also: Ho ho ho). (This postal code, in which zeroes are used for the letter "O" is consistent with the alternating letter-number format of all Canadian postal codes.) Sometimes children's charities answer letters in poorer communities or from children's hospitals in order to give them presents that they would not otherwise receive.
In Britain it is tradition to burn the Christmas letters on the fire so that they would be magically transported by the wind to the North Pole. However, this tradition is dying out in modern times with few people having true open fires in their homes. Recently however, national postal service Royal Mail revived the tradition by Santa Letters giving "santa claus" a special address: Santa/Father Christmas, Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland, SAN TA1. [2]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpObA5esSQA
In Mexico and other Latin American countries, besides using the mail, sometimes children wrap their letters to a small helium balloon, releasing them into the air so Santa magically receives them.
Through the years Santa Claus of Finland has received over eight million letters. He gets over 600,000 letters every year from over 150 countries. Children from Great Britain, Poland and Japan are the busiest writers. The Finnish Santa Claus lives in Korvatunturi but Santa's Official Post Office is situated in Rovaniemi at the Arctic circle. His address is this: Santa Claus, Santa Claus Village, FIN-96930 Arctic Circle, Finland.
As opposing to children writing a letter to Santa Claus, parents of those children can order a personalized "Santa letter", such as from Santa The PenPal, to be sent to their children - often with a North Pole postmarked on the envelope to simulate that the letter is from Santa Claus. Because the density of where these parents live is extremely low in any given area, this "Santa Letter" market therefore heavily rely on internet as a medium for parents to order these santa letters rather than ordering from an ordinary retail store. However, there are criticisms regarding to moral or ethical concern to this kind of business whether parents are lying to children by ordering these Santa Letters, and if so, is it ok to lie to the children?
