Communications link to North Pole lets Thunder Bay, Ont. students talk to Santa

It's almost that time of year again, when Santa Claus and his reindeer will be stopping over to deliver shiny new gifts and polish off mounds of cookies.

In anticipation of Christmas Day, kids throughout Thunder Bay, Ont., got to share their wish lists directly with Santa from December 3 to 7, as part of Operation Radio Santa.

Soldiers from 3 Squadron, 38 Signal Regiment have been visiting public and catholic elementary schools throughout the city with their communications equipment so that students can speak to Father Christmas over the radio.

Brodie Richards is a Grade 2 student at Corpus Christi Elementary School. When he arrived at school on Thursday, Dec. 6, he thought he was going to be learning math. Instead, Richards got to speak to Santa!

Richards said he was excited because "you get to tell him what you would like for Christmas or you can tell him how much excited you are for Christmas, or if you have an elf-on-the-shelf you can tell him about it."

Krista Gradner is an early childhood educator and she has arranged for Operation Radio Santa to come to Corpus Christi for several years now. Gradner's favourite part of the whole event is seeing the reaction of the kids.

"I love seeing the childrens' faces when they get to talk to Santa or when Santa knows their siblings' names or knows what they want for Christmas already. It's just their voices, just to hear them talk to Santa and get all shy, it's so cute!"

There were a lot of requests for Santa this year, but perhaps the best one came from one little boy who said that he wanted "penguins for Christmas!"

While it remains to be seen whether penguins descend on Thunder Bay for Christmas morning, one thing is sure — Operation Radio Santa definitely helped spread the holiday spirit.