Ho, Ho, Ho!!!

Have you ever wanted to do something special for your kids or grandkids for Christmas?  Something really memorable. . . something secretive?  Well, I love doing surprises for my kids and grandkids.  A few years ago, I did Letters from Santa for my kids and nieces and nephews, and it was a great surprise.  They still talk about it.  This year I had a Letter from Santa sent to my grandkids.  Even the 10 year old truly believed the letter came from "The North Pole".  How do I do it?

Here's a photo of the beginning of the letters that I mailed.  I downloaded the snowflake stationary from the internet.  Using my graphics program (it's an old one, but I'm good with it), I added the Santa with snowman clip art.  I'm sure that you could really do this in a word program, too.  It's just that I'm more comfortable with the graphics program.  I then added the text that I wanted, and also created an envelope.

My dad was a postal carrier for 36 years and I learned a lot about the postal department.  What  a lot of people don't realize is that there really is a North Pole post office.  North Pole, New York was designated as a "rural postal station" in the 1950's, but now has it's own zip code (12997).I have always used this zip code for my letters, but there is also a North Pole, Alaska (zip code 99705).  After printing the letters, stuffing and addressing the envelopes, and affixing the necessary postage  to each of the letters, I put them into a larger mailing envelope with a note the the Postmaster asking him (or her) to please postmark the enclosed letters with the North Pole postmark and mail them to the kids.  Rod mailed the envelope to the North Pole on  Friday, December 10th and the kids received their letters yesterday.  They were so excited to have received a letter from Santa.  Izzy was most excited to find that she was on the "nice list".  Krissy was impressed that the letter came from the North Pole, but couldn't figure out what the N.Y. stood for.  You see, postal abbreviations aren't supposed to be separated with periods.  So, today I'm smiling a lot, knowing that I made a special day for my grandkids. I'm sorry that I didn't post this sooner, but perhaps you could file it away for next year.  Hope your holiday preparations are proceeding on schedule.