“Dear Santa, I am in need of help,” begins the festive-themed letter, topped with a Christmas tree star. “I am unable to work from work injury and fixed income with a household of 10 family members and I would like to ask for the following items.” What follows is a modest Christmas wish list: gift cards for Walmart and Target, a credit toward long-accrued debts for home internet (“help paying AT&T bill – $200 – past due”), money toward basic checks on a rundown family car (“need car smogged – $200 is cost to smog old car”), and electrical goods for a kitchen (“microwave, toaster oven, air fryer, rice cooker, as all mine are beyond old and poorly working”.)
The next day, another letter pops up: “Dear Santa, I have been a really good boy this year and good in school too. My mommy can’t really afford Christmas this year because she says things are hard right now so I wanted to know if you had any toys left over.” This one is written in the unsteady hand of a school-age boy named Tristan.
Operation Santa — an annual tradition run by the US Postal Service that shares anonymized letters online from children and families across the country — is intended to be a heartwarming exercise. No child is excluded from participating, and plenty of kids write in (to “Santa, 123 Elf Road, North Pole, 88888”) asking for the standard stuff: PlayStation games, Lego, Disney Princess outfits, sometimes even new iPhones or Apple Watches. Letters can be submitted either individually or in bulk, for families; those with an altruistic streak who are viewing the USPS Operation Santa website can choose to “adopt” the letter of one kid or an entire household. To adopt a letter (or any number of letters, as there’s no limit to how much you can take on), you must first verify your identity. Then, you signal the individual or family you intend to reply to, buy whatever you can from their list, and drop off the package at your local post office with a unique identifier. The post office uses that identifier to address the shipment and send it on to its intended destination. As the present-giver, you are only allowed to identify yourself as “Santa”.
Undoubtedly, Operation Santa has brought joy to many thousands of families. It’s generally seen by those who participate as “just a bit of fun.” You are not obliged to fulfill everything on a child’s wish list; if they ask for a cuddly toy, a Disney bracelet, and an iPhone, you can justifiably leave the expensive phone out. At its happiest, the program injects a little more magic into a child’s festive season, “proving” the existence of Santa by adding a small and mysterious gift into the haul they might expect from their parents under the tree. At its saddest, it helps a struggling family bear the brunt of festive spending. But as a cost-of-living crisis deepens and a global recession looms, Operation Santa has become something else: a barometer of American misery. It’s hard not to scroll through these letters and see them as a collective cry for help.
Operation Santa is for children, so parents’ voices only come through when packaged up as family deals with their kids’ lists or when letters purport to be from babies or toddlers. “Dear Santa, my name is Crystal,” reads one. “I am 39 with 4 children and a grandbaby on the way. My favorite color is bright orange or really any orange. I love to be outside as much as possible. I can’t really afford much of anything right now. The only other thing I want for Christmas besides watching my family open gifts and smile would be to have a new pair of shoes.” Later in her letter, Crystal says of her husband Kurt: “We have been together for 19 years… My husband is such an amazing man who will help anybody, he works so hard to take care of us. I just want him to have something for Christmas. Times are so hard right now but I just want him to have something nice, it’s his turn.” At the end of her letter, she gives Kurt’s shirt, pants, and shoe size in the hope that he might receive some suitable clothes.
Reading between the lines of some children’s otherwise happy notes points to hardship too. “Dear Santa, my name is Amanda and I am 8 years old. My wish is for my mom to get a beautiful house,” writes one. Another explains that he’s writing so that he has “something to open on Christmas.” One says “I have been very good this year and would like some new school clothes” since “I got straight A’s on my report card this semester and always help my mom at home.” Fifteen-year-old Katie details how her favorite hobby is photography (“I have my mom’s old digital camera. I take pictures of nature, the city, and many more”) and how she spends a lot of time reading books in the library, adding: “This year my mother lost her job. She’s having a hard time buying stuff we need and also gifts.” Katie says her favorite artist is Harry Styles and she’d like to buy his vinyls and CDs “but I can’t afford it.” At fifteen, it’s fair to say that Katie knows she’s not really writing to Santa — she is making a plea to the American public.
There are the letters that hit you right in the gut: “Dear Santa, my name is Zoey! I am 7 years old right now. I am currently in foster care. I have a great foster family but I really miss my mom and dad. For Christmas I’d really like a locket that I can put their picture in and look at when I’m feeling sad. I’d also really love a cat toy to give to my cat, Sammy. He still lives with my mom and dad and I miss him a lot.” And there are others that ask for so little in such stark terms: “My name is Zabrina. This year has been really rough for my family. I am disabled and can barely provide a Christmas, all I’m asking for is a Christmas miracle.” Zabrina goes on to say that she would love to have some presents to give to her daughter, suggesting “hair bows”, “slime”, or “maybe a Christmas meal.”
It is difficult not to read some of the Operation Santa letters and feel anger at the systemic failings that led the writers there. “Dear Santa, my name is Lelani, I’m 14 months old,” reads one. “I’m still a baby and don’t know how to write so my GiGi will be writing you for me. It’s been a pretty rough year, my parents are teen parents, my dad graduated this year and my mom is in her senior year of high school. My dad lost his first job about 2 weeks ago due to me being in the hospital with RSV.” Behind those words lurk so many societal problems: employment “at will”, which allows people to be fired for getting sick or when their children get sick; a lack of adequate sex education in public schools; a barely existent social security system; a healthcare industry that routinely pushes people into poverty and bankruptcy. When Braydon from Indiana asks for “body wash and shampoo”, “toothpaste”, bedsheets, “socks” and “a pillow” before adding that his newborn baby sister “could use some winter clothes”, we should be asking why the richest country in the world ended up here. When his sister writes that “I am 16 years old, I have been moved around since I was 8,” we should be asking how a foster care system this inadequate is possible when the US has, by a wide margin, more billionaires than any other country in the world.
Operation Santa has been operating in some form since the early 1900s, and children have been putting letters into postboxes intended for Santa since before that. It was in 1912 that postmasters were authorized to reply to these yearly letters, and by the 1940s, letter volumes had increased by so much that charities and businesses were invited to participate in the program. The current iteration of Operation Santa — a fully digitized, online database that posts letters from every state and encourages citizens across the country to fulfill Christmas lists — came into being relatively recently, in 2020. Before that, a number of pilots had been conducted, starting with a localized program in New York City in 2017. It is a national effort of awesome proportions, an example of what joined-up infrastructure can do in a country with so many problems exacerbated by physical (and mental) division. One might be justified in wondering: If the USPS can do this for one month every year, why can the government not do something similar for twelve? Of course, answering individual letters that speak of personal hardships doesn’t come under the purview of a government. But working to eradicate those wholly avoidable hardships does.
“Dear Santa, my name is Zaire and I am 1 month old. This year, I would like diapers, wipes, baby body wash, baby blankets, diaper bag, drying rack for bottles, bottle warmer, bathtub, baby swing, bottle cleaner, baby Vaseline, Deft laundry detergent, baby stroller, high chair, baby cloth hamper, baby sleeper clothes, baby socks, baby clothes (3 months), baby bibs, anything else you know he can use. We need it. Thank you — bless you!” writes a mother called Destiny who will not suddenly receive the basic supplies she needs for motherhood in January, even if you give generously to her today.
“Dear Santa, my name is Melvin, I’m 5 months old. For Christmas can you send me a $100 gift card to Walmart so my family can buy me some diapers, wipes, and other things I need/want. Thank you. Merry Christmas!” writes someone else on behalf of another baby in the same situation.
“Dear Santa, I’m a single mother with two kids. I’m a special education teacher for my hometown middle school. This year things have been tight. I’ve had to replace my H-VAC, in addition to repair my car that I hit a deer with out of pocket and start to prepare for Christmas all within the last two weeks. I’d appreciate any help I can get,” writes Ashley from Kentucky, who will still be paying off her bills in 2023.
“Dear Santa, my name is Zam, this year I have gone through a lot. My health has been not so good. I was in and out the hospital all year. But that doesn’t stop me from loving music. I play violin to forget everything,” writes a young boy with clear artistic potential whose parents cannot afford to buy him an instrument.
“Dear Santa, we are in need of a new twin mattress, bed and bedding for our son (Dante, 4 years old.) He loves Thomas trains and Bluey,” writes another desperate parent.
NGOs often find that they experience surges in donations during the holiday period, and like to emphasize that the people they serve are needy all year round. So, too, is it important to remember that the letters on Operation Santa today point to serious issues experienced all year — illness, death, job insecurity, disability, homelessness, and family breakdown — that will not be resolved on December 26th. By all means, do as I intend to do and adopt a letter (or five) on the Operation Santa website before it closes in mid-December. But don’t forget, when the festivities are done, that there will be even more sad letters next year if we don’t work to address the structural problems behind the cries for help.
