For more than four decades, Canada has quietly run one of the largest and most ambitious holiday traditions in the world.

It is not a parade or a broadcast special. It is a mailroom.

Every year, millions of letters addressed to Santa Claus arrive at Canada Post, and every one of them gets an answer.

In the early 1970s, Canada Post employees in Montreal began answering children’s letters to Santa on their own time. The earliest documented replies date to 1974, though similar volunteer efforts were also popping up in Vancouver around the same time. These letters would otherwise have gone to undeliverable mail.

The idea spread organically. Kids loved it. Parents talked about it. More letters arrived every year.

In 1982, Canada Post made it official. The corporation committed to replying to every letter addressed to Santa and launched a national program. With that came one of the most famous postal codes in the country, H0H 0H0, a deliberate nod to Santa’s “ho ho ho.”

From that point on, any letter addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole, H0H 0H0, Canada” would be answered, no stamp required.

At the heart of the operation is a volunteer army.

Each year, between 11,000 and 15,000 Canada Post employees and retirees volunteer as “postal elves.” Collectively, they donate more than 200,000 hours during the holiday season.

Letters dropped into any mailbox in Canada are routed by the H0H 0H0 postal code into a separate processing stream. From there, they are distributed to volunteer teams across the country.

Every letter is read. Replies are generated using a library of Santa letters that cover common themes, and then volunteers add a small handwritten note referencing something specific from the child’s letter. A drawing, a toy request, a pet’s name.

In recent years, Santa receives between 1.3 and 1.5 million letters each holiday season. About 85 to 90 percent come from within Canada. The rest arrive from around the world.

Since the national program began in 1982, more than 45 million letters have been answered.

Email exists, but it has never replaced paper. Tens of thousands of emails arrive each year, but handwritten letters still dominate.

At its core, the Santa letter program is not about logistics or branding. It is about consistency.

For more than 40 years, Canada has told children the same thing: If you write Santa, he will answer.

That promise has survived changing governments, budget pressures, strikes, and the sheer weight of scale. Every December, millions of envelopes prove that a national institution can still do something simple, generous, and human.

All it takes is paper, ink, and thousands of people willing to play along.

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