Special mail service to Santa this Christmas

At this time of year, hundreds of thousands of children from all over the world pen carefully worded letters to Santa Claus, mainly stressing the fact that they have been good boys and girls, and appending lists of their expectations for Christmas.

Post Offices everywhere, Maltapost included, are deluged with these letters, which are forwarded to Santa Claus at his Post Office in the Arctic Circle.

Santa Claus lives at Korvatunturi mountain in Lapland, and his main post office stands in Santa Claus Village at the Arctic Village at the Arctic Circle, near Rovaniemi.

Santa makes it a point to reply to all letters received, though this may take some time in view of the exceptionally large numbers. Luckily, his busy band of elves give a helping hand, in between sorting out, packing and despatching Christmas gifts to their various destinations worldwide.

Maltese and Gozitan children, and children of foreign nationalities living in Malta and Gozo, are no exception when it comes to writing to Santa Claus, and letters arriving at the Maltapost head office in Marsa, are always forwarded to Father Christmas by the first available flight to Lapland.

In order to make things that little bit easier for children this Christmas, Maltapost has teamed up with Bay Street to provide an extra-special service, mainly by installing a letter box at the Bay Street Rotunda, right next to Santa's Grotto, for the duration of the Christmas festivities.

Arrangements have been made for Maltapost staff to collect mail from this letter box on a daily basis, in order to ensure speedy dispatch.

Maltapost and Bay Street have also arranged for special Postage Paid envelopes, together with pre-printed labels of Santa Claus' address (Santa Claus Main Post Office, Santa Village, FIN-96930 Artic Circle, Finland), to be made available from Chaucer's Bookshop at Level One of the Bay Street Complex, overlooking Santa's Grotto.

This in effect means that children may visit the Bay Street Rotunda with their letters to Santa prepared in advance, buy a postage paid envelope together with Santa's address and post them in the letter box near the Grotto. For those who cannot make it to Bay Street, the service will also be available at all the Maltapost branches.

The service will be launched tomorrow at 2.30 p.m. during the Bay Street's Bkidz Club activities.