Kids! The countdown is on to get your wish list to Santa. Here's how
Top 10 questions kids ask in their letters to Santa Claus
Regardless of whether you were naughty or nice this year, the countdown is on to send your Christmas wish list to Santa Claus, and his postal elves are standing by to help.
For the past 35 years, volunteer elves at Canada Post have answered letters on Santa's behalf.
On average, Santa receives a million letters a year from children around the world. Last year it was 1½ million.
"That's around 2,500 mail bags full of mail," said the spokeswoman for the Canada Post elves, Aurelie Walsh.
Santa's postal elves aim to send a response to every child who mails a letter, she said, and can write back in more than 30 languages, including braille for visually impaired children.
It's a "monumental task," Walsh said, and the Canada Post elves volunteer around 260,000 hours each year to complete the task.
Top 10 questions for Santa
The 10 most common questions children ask Santa in their letters:
- Santa, why are you so old, and how old are you?
- How are Mrs. Claus, the reindeer and the elves?
- What's your favourite food and what's your favourite cookie?
- Do you eat cookies at every meal and do you have to eat vegetables too?
- Are there children elves and do they go to school?
- Why do you only have to work one day, and how do you get around the world in one night?
- How will you get into my house if we don't have a chimney?
- How was your summer at the North Pole?
- How many elves do you have?
- Am I on the naughty or nice list? Or somewhere in the middle?
Postage is optional
Letters to Santa do not require postage, Walsh said, "so if you forget to put a stamp on the envelope it's OK, the letter will make it to Santa."
Children should send their letters to:
Santa Claus
North Pole
HOH OHO
Canada
Letters have to be sent by Dec. 14 in order to make it to the North Pole on time, Walsh said, and a return address is required if kids want to get a letter back from Santa.
Listen to a four-year-old girl compose her letter to Santa, with a little help from mom:
With files from the CBC's Information Morning