Most letters to Santa are a wish list with a signature. This one asks the questions that make a letter worth reading at the North Pole: who they are, who their best friend is, one kind thing they did this year, and what they are hoping for. Print it, hand it over with a good pen, and step back.
Download the free Dear Santa letter template (PDF)
Printing it yourself? Or let it arrive in the mailbox.
Santa can mail your child a letter with their name on it, in a red envelope hand-addressed in white ink, with a North Pole return address and a real stamp. Free letter. $6.99 shipping.
Writing to Santa is half the magic. The other half is a letter from Santa in their mailbox.
More than 100 kids are on Santa’s map. Is yours?
Free letter. $6.99 shipping.
How to use it (without taking it over)
- Let them write it. Spelling is optional at the North Pole. A letter that says “I want a drum and I was nise to my sister” is a better letter than one a grown-up tidied up.
- Help with the hard line only if asked. “This year I was kind when I…” is usually the one that takes the most thinking. It is also the one worth asking, because it gets a child talking about what they did for someone else in December.
- Little ones can draw. A picture in the wish box counts. Santa reads pictures.
- Take a photo before it goes in the envelope. You will want it in ten years.
Where to mail a letter to Santa in 2026
The Postal Service gives this address for 2026: Santa Claus, 123 Elf Rd., North Pole, 88888. Use a First-Class stamp and have it postmarked by December 5. Letters sent there go into USPS Operation Santa, where members of the public can adopt letters from families who need help at Christmas. There is no guarantee a letter is adopted or answered. We explain both of the Postal Service’s Santa programs in does USPS send letters from Santa?
How Santa writes back
Here is the part the template was built for. Everything your child just wrote down (their name, their age, their best friend, the kind thing, the wish) is exactly what goes into a letter from Santa that feels real, because it knows things a stranger could not.
That is what we do. Each handwritten letter from Santa is written by hand by our team of writers, in real pen and red ink on cream parchment, with those details woven in. It arrives in a red envelope hand-addressed in white ink, with a North Pole return address and a real stamp. $39.99, shipping included. Order by December 12 and it arrives before Christmas, or you get a full refund (US addresses).
Or start with the free printed letter from Santa: the letter is free with $6.99 shipping, and it comes in the same hand-addressed red envelope.
Free, for the letter after this one
What to say when they ask if Santa is real
The word-for-word guide by age, for the year the questions start. In your inbox in a minute.
Quick answers
What should a kid write in a letter to Santa? Who they are, one thing they did this year that they are proud of, and what they are hoping for. A question for Santa is always welcome too; the good ones are about the reindeer.
When should they write it? Whenever the lists start in your house. If you want it in the USPS program, it has to be postmarked by December 5.
Can a kid get a reply from Santa? Through Operation Santa, maybe; it depends on a volunteer adopting the letter. For a letter from Santa that is certain to arrive, a grown-up can order one from Santa’s desk.
