--- title: Letters to Santa: How the Christmas Tradition Started description: The earliest letters were actually from Santa Claus canonical: https://time.com/4147998/history-letters-to-santa-claus/ author: Merrill Fabry article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2015-12-21T16:00:30.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-05-11T05:00:45.639Z article:section: History og:title: Letters to Santa: How the Christmas Tradition Started og:description: The earliest letters were actually from Santa Claus og:url: https://time.com/4147998/history-letters-to-santa-claus/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9e5bf57c13e44e6/6988762a196cf4be9c0398c3/santa.jpeg?branch=production&width=595&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 595 og:image:height: 335 og:image:alt: Letter to Santa og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: Letters to Santa: How the Christmas Tradition Started twitter:description: The earliest letters were actually from Santa Claus twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta9e5bf57c13e44e6/6988762a196cf4be9c0398c3/santa.jpeg?branch=production&width=595&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # This Is How Letters to Santa Were First Delivered by the U.S. Mail > Sponsored content. 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They are at time.com/newsletters and are separate from a paid subscription.  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Dec 21, 2015 4:00 PM UTC  Clyde Snipes hands a letter Santa Claus in South Carolina on Dec. 24, 1932 Clyde Snipes hands a letter Santa Claus in South Carolina on Dec. 24, 1932 Gamma-Keystone / Getty Images  by [Merrill Fabry](https://time.com/author/merrill-fabry/)  ## Merrill Fabry Dec 21, 2015 4:00 PM UTC Every year thousands of children write letters to Santa Claus to request the presents they want to receive from the fabled North Pole resident, and in the United States those letters are often dropped in a real mailbox. But how did that tradition start? Some of the earliest Christmas correspondence wasn’t actually written to Santa, but rather from him. In the first half of the 19th Century, Santa Claus was more of a disciplinary figure than the jolly old fellow who sorts “naughty” from “nice” these days. Stories of Saint Nicholas were meant to encourage children to behave, and some parents even wrote letters “from” Santa Claus to their children discussing their conduct over the previous year, mischievous or obedient, per [_Smithsonian_](http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/brief-history-sending-letter-santa-180957441/?no-ist)_._ The American image of Santa Claus developed throughout the 1800s, from the 1823 publication of the poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”—now known by its first line, “’Twas the night before Christmas”—to cartoonist Thomas Nast’s Christmas illustrations in the widely read _Harper’s Weekly_. Nast’s drawings of Santa, which first appeared in _Harper’s_ during the Civil War, helped create the visual references for Santa Claus that are still familiar today, including a red suit and white beard. Nast’s drawings also captured the earliest days of the postal service’s involvement in the Christmas workflow. In 1871 Nast [drew](https://books.google.com/books?id=%5FV68AQAAQBAJ&lpg=PP1&pg=PA11#v=onepage&q&f=false) Santa Claus at his desk reading his mail and sorting it into two piles. The one labeled “letters from naughty children’s parents” reaches well above his head, whereas “letters from good children’s parents” is a far smaller stack. A few years later, in 1879, Nast created the first [known](https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/harp/1225.html) [image](https://books.google.com/books?id=tZM8Y%5F5Z05MC&lpg=PP1&dq=%22santa%20claus%22&pg=PA4#v=onepage&q&f=false) of someone using the U.S. mail system to write to Santa Claus. In this _Harper’s_ illustration, a youthful figure puts a letter addressed to “St. Claus North Pole” in a mailbox on a snowy evening. By that point, however, the mail system was already being used for letters to Santa. On Boxing Day 1874, for example, the New York _Times_ included an item about letters “deposited in the Richmond Post Office, evidently written by children, plainly indicated that they, anticipating the annual visit of Santa Claus, wished to remind him of what they most desired.” The _Times_ quoted a few letters: one requested “a big wagon—not so very big—four wheels, two packs pop-crackers, a Mother Hubbard book.” At first, the U.S. Postal Service would consider letters addressed to Santa Claus undeliverable, either returning them to their senders or sending them to the Dead Letter Office. Around the turn of the 20th century, however, philanthropists and charities expressed [interest](https://about.usps.com/who-we-are/postal-history/santa-letters.pdf) in fulfilling Santa’s role for poor children who sent him letters. “The Post Office Department does not believe in Santa Claus. Officially the dispenser of Christmas cheer for little folks is a myth,” the _Times_ wrote in 1906\. “The Christmas season has no charm for the prosaic employees of the Dead Letter Office. It means only a lot of extra work and bother for them.” The article went on to deplore the unsympathetic post office and “red-tape-bound officialdom” for their lack of imagination to find a way to honor the children’s requests. The following year, the Postmaster General allowed his employees to distribute the letters, but the charitable people and organizations to whom they were given found themselves faced with the task of deciding whether the children were _really_ in need of their assistance. The resulting complaints meant the Postmaster General did not renew the allowance the following year. His successor wrote an [order](http://www.uspostalbulletins.com/PDF/Vol32%5FIssue9662%5F19111103.pdf) in 1911 that all letters “addressed plainly and unmistakably to ‘Santa Claus’” could be delivered to “responsible institutions or individuals” to use for “philanthropic purposes.” This time permission was renewed and in 1913 made permanent. _Tonight Show_ host Johnny Carson read out letters from needy children during December shows in the 1960s, helping to popularize the program. In 1989, Santa [got](http://time.com/vault/issue/1989-11-13/page/105/) his own ZIP Code. The program continues today, along with a USPS [scheme](https://about.usps.com/holidaynews/letters-from-santa.htm) allowing parents to reply to their children’s letters to Santa Claus. ### See the Surprising Ways the U.S. Mail Has Been Delivered Over the Years  City letter carriers pose with handcarts used to collect and transport mail, 1885. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  City collection mail wagon manufactured by Studebaker Brothers. The wagon was used to collect mail from sidewalk mailboxes in Chicago, 1890. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  Postal officials encouraged Rural Free Delivery (RFD) carriers to replace their horses and wagons with electric-motored vehicles, but this 1910 postal worker was surely only able to complete his wintertime rounds thanks to a snow-plowed road. Automobiles were not yet adequate replacements for horses and sleds on rural roads. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  Three-wheeled mail collection motorcycle in Washington, D.C.The motorcycle was used only on an experimental basis in DC in 1912. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  A letter carrier collecting mail from a sidewalk mail collection box. His mail truck is parked at the curb. 1915. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  Postal employees loading mail into a de Havilland mail airplane at Hadley Field in New Brunswick, N.J. Transcontinental airmail service had begun in the summer of 1924 and was then extended to east coast with the completion of a series of airmail beacons that helped guide pilots across the country. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  Rural carrier Lloyd Mortice created this unusual vehicle for use on his snow-bound New England route. Mortice fitted his 1926 Model-T with a steel track on the rear drive shaft, enabling him to drop either wheels or skis into place in front, depending on weather conditions. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  Officials are gathered to welcome the first Highway Post Office bus in Strasburg, Va., on Feb. 10, 1941\. By the 1930s, a significant decline in railroad passenger traffic had caused a subsequent decline in the use of railway trains. To fill the void, the postal service transferred some en route distribution from trains to highway buses. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  In 1953, a letter carrier drives one of the Department’s new right-hand drive vans on the snowy streets of an unidentified city. The Department ordered thousands of new postal vehicles in the early 1950s as part of its post-war modernization plan. Few of the dozens of different vehicles ordered during that drive were re-ordered in large quantities. Smithsonian's National Postal Museum  In 1955, a city letter carrier is seated in a three-wheeled "mailster" motor vehicle. Carriers used these vehicles to carry the ever-increasing amounts of mail that was being delivered to American households after end of the Second World War, but they could be immobilized in as little as three inches of snow, did not heat properly and were easily tipped over. 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