"Grinched! US stops forwarding Santa letters to North Pole, Alaska" by Rachel D’oro, Associated Press | November 20, 2009
The Santa letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, Alaska, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringle Drive. (Sam Harrel/Associated Press)
ANCHORAGE - Starry-eyed children writing letters to the jolly man at the North Pole this holiday season will probably not get a response from Santa Claus or his helpers.
The US Postal Service is dropping a popular national program begun in 1954 in the small Alaska town of North Pole, where volunteers open and respond to thousands of letters addressed to Santa each year. Replies come with North Pole postmarks.
Last year, a postal worker in Maryland recognized an Operation Santa volunteer there as a registered sex offender. The postal worker interceded before the individual could answer any letters, but the Postal Service viewed the episode as a big enough scare to tighten rules in such programs nationwide.
Who cares about that; are you saying TAXPAYER DOLLARS are WASTED with a WHOPPING CARBON FOOTPRINT so we can all PLAY PRETEND for the kids?!!!!
Related: Post Office Box Closed
Look, I CARE ABOUT KIDS, too, and TELLING THEM LIES about global warming, wars, and all sorts of things is NOT IN THEIR BEST INTERESTS, either!
I am of the belief that EVERY CHILD in the WORLD should get a gift on Christmas but LET'S SHUT DOWN THIS and the WARS to do it, huh? That way the KID'S DADDY or MOMMY may return ALIVE, huh?
People in North Pole are incensed by the change, likening the Postal Service to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.
So they don't care about planet Earth and what we leave for the kids, huh?
The letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringle Drive and Santa Claus Lane. Volunteers in the letter program even sign the response letters as Santa’s elves and helpers.
Hey, it sounds like fun and if the country were not broke and stiffing its citizens with endless taxes then I would be all for this, but it is time to start QUESTIONING some TRADITIONS around here!
North Pole’s mayor, Doug Isaacson, agreed caution is necessary to protect children. But he said he is outraged North Pole’s program should be affected by a sex offender’s actions on the East Coast, and he thinks it is wrong that locals just learned of the change. “It’s Grinch-like that the Postal Service never informed all the little elves before the fact,’’ he said. “They’ve been working on this for how long?’’
Why is he talking to us as if we were 5, readers?
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Pamela Moody, an agency spokeswoman in Anchorage, stressed that children can still send letters to Santa Claus. The Postal Service still runs the larger Operation Santa Program, in which children can have their letters to Santa answered. What will change are the generically addressed letters to “Santa Claus, North Pole’’ that for years have been forwarded to the Alaska town, although Brennan said only a fraction of the letters with no address wind up in the Alaska town, anyway. That program will stop, unless changes are made before Christmas.
I'm sorry.
I missed the link; must have had too much grog nog.
ANCHORAGE - An Alaska senator says the US Postal Service is resuming a program allowing volunteers to respond to letters sent to Santa Claus in care of the North Pole, Alaska, post office.
Republican US Senator Lisa Murkowski said yesterday that Deputy Postmaster General Pat Donahoe told her in a phone call the agency has reconsidered its decision to not allow volunteers to answer the letters....
So they don't care about global warming, huh?
Related: Going Xmas Shopping: Checking the Weather
People in North Pole were incensed by the change, likening the Postal Service to the Grinch trying to steal Christmas.
They work for Goldman Sachs, do they?
The letter program is a revered holiday tradition in North Pole, where light posts are curved and striped like candy canes and streets have names such as Kris Kringle Drive and Santa Claus Lane. Volunteers in the letter program even sign the response letters as Santa’s elves and helpers.
I'm paying for repetitions?
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