Best Guide to USPS Operation Santa®

She mailed her letter to Santa and asked only for a warm coat, new shoes, and a toy. Our volunteer adopted it at the USPS Operation Santa ® website, and made her wish come true. When you adopt a child’s letter to Santa, it’s micro-philanthropy, direct from you to a child, with no charity involved. 

Every December since 1912, the USPS ® has permitted the public to read and adopt children’s letters to Santa. Be An Elf is a tax-exempt charity not affiliated with USPS Operation Santa ®, but we support it by creating public awareness in every State, by recruiting hundreds of new volunteers who adopt letters and send gifts, and by providing an excellent guide for new volunteer elves. 

While donations to our charity are welcome and will be put to good use, you’ll find deeper satisfaction when you adopt a letter to Santa yourself at the USPS ® website, and mail your gift to the family directly. 

If you don’t have time to adopt a letter and send gifts, Be An Elf will do it for you. When you donate online, we’ll use part of your gift to adopt letters to Santa and send gifts, and part to further our mission and outreach.

Some letters we adopt are from single moms who say they are struggling this year. Others say their kids are too young to write, and list their names, ages, and clothing sizes. One 12 year old wrote, “I’m sad this Christmas because my mom lost her job, and I need new clothes. I feel ashamed sometimes at school.”

Some of our volunteers feel alone and sad over the holidays, and find comfort and inspiration adopting a child’s letter. Others have families and include their kids to teach them the meaning of Christmas.

When you adopt a letter to Santa, your heart will be full with feelings of joy, love, and Christmas spirit. Visit USPS Operation Santa® and start reading letters now!

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Starting in mid-November every year, letters from kids and families may be adopted at the USPS Operation Santa® website above. Postal elves select letters and upload new ones to the site daily, and kids’ letters keep pouring in as Christmas approaches. 

Be An Elf’s Seeking Gifts? page offers tips to families who are struggling financially. Since children also find this page, at the top we offer a simple explanation, and assure kids that, “Postal elves put every child’s letter right back in the mail to Santa the same day, and he will deliver his gifts at Christmas, too.” The page also offers smart tips for parents who are hoping to find help with Christmas this year.

Be An Elf also offers a team-building guide for company employees on our Company Christmas Charity page.

When visitors find a letter they wish to adopt from the Operation Santa ® website, they print out the letter together with a barcoded shipping label. USPS® staff redact family names and addresses from letters before posting them online.

Volunteers can mail their gifts at any of 19,000 US postal branches that offer the “label broker” service. Postal clerks at these branches scan the barcoded shipping labels on the packages, and print out labels with the family’s address. See our How to mail gifts page to find a branch near you. 

Packages with gifts should be mailed by December 17th to get there in time for Christmas, but post offices will accept packages for mailing up until mid-January.

Those who sign up for our mailing list below will get a reminder about the program every Christmas season, and can unsubscribe at any time.

Be An Elf adopts letters only through the USPS Operation Santa® website, and the number of letters we are able to adopt increases as we receive tax-deductible donations from the public. 

Tax-deductible donations may be made to Be An Elf using our Donate page. Your contribution to Be An Elf will help us send more gifts to low-income families in time for Christmas. 

Whether you donate or adopt a letter and send gifts, you will bring joy to more kids on Christmas morning.  You’ll catch the true spirit of the holidays and help put smiles on the faces of needy kids on Christmas morning.

Thanks for being an Elf! Please share this website on your social media, and share one of our sample tweets and posts.

About the transition in 2020 from the traditional walk-in program to online

From 1912 to 2019 the USPS® welcomed walk-in volunteers to read and adopt letters in person at select branches alongside other volunteers.

In the year of Covid, 2020, the Postal Service® took the program online and expanded access to all Americans nationwide.  The same year the Postal Service® canceled the traditional walk-in program at the last two branches that still offered it, in New York City and Chicago.  

Our Press releases pitch editors to cover the USPS Operation Santa® story, and mention Be An Elf at the end of coverage as a guide for Christmas volunteers and those Seeking Gifts. 

When the below MSNBC news interview was filmed in 2011, Christmas volunteers could still walk in and adopt letters at select postal branches. Operation Santa is now fully online, and while it’s no longer possible to read letters in person, this report captures the emotions so many volunteers experience.