‘One kid only wrote in their letter, ‘Santa, I love you’
If you needed to reach Santa this holiday season, a close-to-home connection helped Greenwood-area letter writers in need.
Caleigh Conway set up an old school “send-and-receive” system at the Greenwood CANEX at the beginning of December. The physical letterboxes were a convenient spot for children of all ages to drop off their letters to Santa – and, within a few days, pick up a reply!
Conway is the Cadet Instructor’s Cadre captain of the 686 Passchendaele Royal Canadian Army Cadet Corps, in Bridgetown; and is the partner of 413 (Transport and Rescue) Squadron Major Dan Conway. She homeschools their children. As Christmas approached, she was thinking of ways to help her children, and their friends, get their annual letters to Santa.
“I posted online I was looking for helpers, to maybe help write letters back, and I was able to borrow a mailbox from a lady in Lawrencetown,” Conway says. “There were definitely other people helping!”
CANEX manager Terry Stuart and his team placed Conway’s mailboxes front and centre at the store’s entrance, and helped promote the local drop-box opportunity. Conway went in every couple days to retrieve letters left in the “to Santa” box, and place reply letters in a neighbouring mailbox for letter writers to pick up.
“I had over 20 letters in just the first week or so – I have young kids, and they have friends, and parents are spreading the word!”
All was going well until she encountered a letter written in French; she enlisted her husband’s help with that reply.
“The kids are mostly saying they’ve been good; they’d love to have whatever; that, if Santa has this particular thing, to please bring it….
“One kid only wrote in their letter, ‘Santa, I love you,’ and THAT’S why I’m doing it!”
Santa Claus depends on countless helpers – when mail does directly reach the North Pole, a team of elves is on the job, crafting replies and checking lists for Santa. There are a myriad of ways to reach Santa nowadays, especially with widespread social media, but he knows many families really do prefer the opportunity to sit down in their homes, perhaps with a pre-Christmas plate of cookies and milk, and put old-fashioned pen to old-fashioned paper.
Conway ended her letter-writing replies December 14, but the drop-box remains at CANEX for a few more days, if there are any last-minute letters to be posted.
Santa says he receives mail and notes and Christmas wishes in all kinds of ways, and many letter writers don’t expect a reply: they check in in-person at community holiday events, where he’s often a special guest, or wait and add a note to Christmas Eve cookies and milk trays, just to say hello, and thank you.
