Postal elves accepting keiki wish list letters to Santa Claus for anonymous gift program

With Christmas only 32 days away, Santa Claus and his postal elves are now accepting wish list letters from keiki.

The US Postal Service is kicking off its annual Operation Santa wish fulfillment program, which starts today. The program encourages Hawaiʻi children to create and submit their Santa wish list letters for potential “adoption” by anonymous gift givers. Adopters fulfill keiki letter writers’ Christmas wishes by purchasing and sending them gifts on behalf of Santa.

Hawai‘i residents are encouraged to go online starting today to adopt letters submitted by children to USPS Operation Santa. Letters can be filtered by state. Details on how to adopt a Santa letter and a history of the program are available at USPSOperationSanta.com.

Letters must be postmarked by Dec. 12 and will be uploaded to the USPS Operation Santa website through Dec. 19 for potential adoption.

In 2021, more than 21,000 Santa letters submitted to the program were adopted nationwide, including 131 from Hawaiʻi.

To participate in the program as a potential holiday gift recipient, all children need to do is write a letter to Santa, put it in an envelope with a First-Class Mail Forever stamp, include their complete return address, and send it to the USPS Operation Santa workshop address:

Santa Claus
123 Elf Road
North Pole 88888

Characteristics of a good letter to Santa include:

• It’s legible
• It has a return address on both the letter and the envelope; make sure to include the full return address — apartment number, directional information (i.e., E Main St., Apt. 103) and ZIP Code
• It has specific asks — including sizes, styles, colors, titles and names
• It is addressed correctly
• It has a postage stamp

When someone writes a letter, it is opened by Santa’s postal elves, and for safety reasons, all personally identifiable information of the letter writer is removed (i.e., last name, address, ZIP Code) and uploaded to USPSOperationSanta.com for adoption. There is no guarantee that letters submitted to the program will be adopted.

Since its beginning in 1912, the USPS Operation Santa program has helped to connect millions of children and their families with generous adopters. In recent years, the program transitioned from a hard-copy program hosted by certain Post Offices to a digital program that allows customers to access Santa letters at the USPS Operation Santa website.