Thousands of letters sent to Santa Claus

            

             Thousands of letters sent to Santa Claus

Christmas time can be both a peaceful time and a hectic one – especially for Santa. Thousands of children each send him letters with their wishes and concerns. Once again this year, Santa was able to rely on support from a hard-working Swiss Post team. Over 20,000 Christmas letters were received by Santa’s helpers and around 96 percent of letters were answered – a full success!

Once again, children in French-speaking Switzerland wrote the most letters for Santa: 10,780 replies were sent to Western Switzerland, 3321 to Ticino and 3776 to German-speaking Switzerland. 295 replies were sent to children abroad. The Berne-Bethlehem post office postmark decorates each reply. In the envelope, the children received a Christmas story and a small gift. In 2016, a total of 20,273 letters were received at the post office in Chiasso, 96.26 percent (19,514) of which could be answered. Children’s wishes contained in the letters are highly varied. Some letters include long lists with wishes for toys such as Lego, game consoles or a bicycle, while others ask Santa for very personal things, such as for their parents to get back together or for there to be no more wars. In fact, it’s not only children who send their wishes to Santa. Adults too express their worries and fears.

For more than 60 years, letters have been read by Santa’s team, sorted by language and – the quality of the sender’s address permitting – answered in one of the three national languages, as well as in English.