Santa Claus will get a helping hand from the Postal Service again this year.
Operation Santa, the annual USPS program that allows employees and customers to aid families in need by “adopting” their letters to St. Nick and granting their holiday wishes, will run from Nov. 18-Dec. 20.
The program will have a new website: USPSOperationSanta.com.
This year, three versions of Operation Santa will be available: a legacy program available only in New York City and Chicago that allows customers to adopt letters in person, a digital program that allows families in 15 cities to send letters to Santa that will be posted on the new site, and an internal program that allows only employees to adopt letters.
Families in the 15 cities that have the digital program must mail their letters to Santa at his official address: Santa Claus, 123 Elf Road, North Pole 88888. The letters must be enclosed inside an envelope and have postage.
Beginning Nov. 18, customers nationwide who want to adopt one or more of these letters can go to USPSOperationSanta.com to first complete a short registration and identity verification process.
Customers can then browse the letters, which will have no personal identifying information, and download those they want to adopt. Each letter will be accompanied by a QR code and an alphanumeric code that the customer must submit when he or she brings their gifts to a Post Office for shipping.
More information on letter adoption and how to help spread the word about the program is available at USPSOperationSanta.com/getinvolved.
The USPS Holiday Newsroom site has additional details, including program instructions, privacy guidelines and a list of locations participating in the legacy and digital programs.