Letters to Santa use to be one of those things that people knew about, but when they where mailed, they where gone. The post office wouldn’t talk about what happened to them - at all.
Those days are now gone. According to a recent CNN article, Santa resides in North Pole, Alaska. So, technically, letters to Santa really do go to the North Pole. Santa’s elves are volunteers that open and read letters trying to get return addresses. According to the Article, a writer named Ashley, wants only one thing, an iPod Nano. She also asks “What list am I on, the naughty or nice list? If I’m on the naughty, what could I do to get off?” She even goes on to ask “And how many cookies do you think you can eat on Christmas night?”
What happened to the secret of Santa of our past? Seriously speaking, there are 5 year olds that can get online and go to their favorite websites. Whats to stop them from getting on Google and figuring out that CNN and others have let the cat out of the bag - then again, I’m now one of those “others”? I remember being 9 and watching a special on how people have seen “elves” running around the North Pole and all that neat stuff - complete with footage of something weird going on and people disappearing in rays of light.
Now days, the most I’ve seen is Santa riding in on a fire truck here and there and NORAD tracking Santa. On a more interesting note, the history behind NORAD tracking Santa dates back to a misprint from Sears in 1955 that gave a number of a hot line for tracking Santa - it just happen to ring the Director of Operations at CONAD (now NORAD). More can be found here.
I may not have kids, but Santa is one of those things, in my mind, that you just don’t mess with until the kid finally figures it out later in life. It shouldn’t bug me, but it does… I can imagine that little Johnny in school has been told that there is no Santa by his parents, only to go to school and tell all his friends in Kindergarten. I’m sure that happens all the time these days - in my past, this didn’t happen until somewhere around 3rd or 4th grade (If memory serves correct). Oh well, it appears that nothing is sacred anymore.
