For more
than a century, it was a simple way of making a child’s dreams come true during
Christmas. Volunteers could go to the post office, sift through piles of letters
that children had sent to Santa Claus and pick one — or more — that tugged
at their heartstrings. Gifts were then acquired, wrapped and shipped to
families whose space beneath the tree might otherwise be bare.
With the
coronavirus pandemic still raging, however, the U.S. Postal Service is taking
its annual “Operation Santa” campaign nationwide and letters to Santa are uploaded
to the
Operation Santa website. Postal customers can read them
and choose to send gifts with their responses, with a signature saying it’s
from Santa (or St. Nick, Kris Kringle or any of Santa’s many names).
“Covid-19
has caused undue hardships, both financial and emotional, to so many Americans
this year,” Kimberly Frum, a spokeswoman for the Postal Service, said in an
email. “The program provides kids and families with an opportunity to receive
gifts during the holidays from anonymous, generous postal customers.”
Operation
Santa expects to receive a record surge in letters this year — and
not just because it's the first time in the program's 108 year history that the
Postal Service has expanded it nationwide.
As of
Friday morning, more than 23,000 of the letters had been adopted, and USPS
continues to refresh its site with new letters each day.
Erlanger
Turner, a clinical psychologist who specializes in parenting and child
behavior, says letters to Santa can be a beneficial exercise for kids' mental
health.
"Narrative
therapy approaches, where we write out our feelings and emotions and
experiences, is really helpful," said Turner. "You could definitely
see in the letters that kids are witnessing stress that their parents are
feeling, in terms of financial concerns."
The letters
to Santa, he added, can provide a starting point for families to begin talking
about some of these difficult subjects.
"Sometimes
parents don't even mention those things or have conversations with them about
their financial struggles, but kids see things," said Turner.
To this
day, Damion DiGrazia is driven by the thoughtfulness behind a gift he received
through Operation Santa.
DiGrazia
had been living in low-income housing with his two siblings and his single
mother when she told him he should write a letter asking Santa for two things —
"just in case Santa can't get one or the other," he recalled.
He wanted
an alarm clock — to help him "be more independent" — and a radio for
entertainment. When Christmas arrived, he got something he couldn't even
imagine he wanted: a two-in-one alarm clock radio.
"It
was the best thing ever," said DiGrazia.
About five
years ago, he started his own Operation Santa spinoff program, eventually
leaving his career on Wall Street. He founded Santa's Knights, a nonprofit in
New York City's Harlem neighborhood that runs its own holiday letter adoption
effort.
Earlier
this month, a letter with a distressing request landed in his inbox.
Eight-year-old
Morgan wrote, "This year has been hard for my family. We had to leave our
house. Could you help Santa?"
Morgan's
mother, Jeanine Campbell, was searching for charities that might help give her
young daughters a merrier holiday when she discovered DiGrazia's site. That's
when she helped her two girls, London, 3, and Morgan, write a letter to Santa.
The family is asking for warm clothes, diapers and Barbies.
In March, Morgan’s mother, a teacher from St. Petersburg, Fla., lost her second job — helping kids at an after-school learning program — when classes went virtual. Then, over the summer, the 33-year-old said she emptied her savings. But a reply from Santa's Knights was a bright spot amid the stress.
"I was
very blessed when I got an email that said that they would do whatever they can
to help the kids," Campbell said. "I was overjoyed."
"They
keep asking me, 'Mommy, did Santa get our letters?' " she said.
"Before this happened, I wasn't sure that they would have anything. It's
really moved me to be able to be so happy that, yeah, Santa's going to get them
— he'll do what he can. I'm so grateful because I didn't know, I really didn't
know that this was going to happen."
From NPR News (edited)
