Thread: Letters to (and from!) Santa

Canada Post 'heartbroken' over rude Santa letters

Published: Friday, December 14, 2007

There was absolutely nothing Ho Ho Ho about the letters Rosalyn Da Costa's children got from Santa yesterday.

In fact, they included filthy messages.

They are two of 10, inappropriate letters dropped in mailboxes across Ottawa in the last two days, but there could be more.

Yesterday, Canada Post shut down its Write To Santa program across the city while it joins Ottawa police to hunt down the "rogue elf."

"Everybody here is so shocked," said Canada Post spokeswoman Cindy Daoust. "Disappointed doesn't begin to describe how we feel."

Ms. Da Costa was far more than disappointed, she was stunned.

When she went for the mail at her Coulter Place home in Orléans yesterday morning, she was thrilled to see Santa had answered letters from two-year-old Maya and 10-year-old Colton.

"My first thought was to wait until Colton got home from school so he could sit and read them with her," she said. "I've done this every year since he was a baby and he loves getting a letter from Santa."

She was happy she changed her mind.

"I told Maya: 'There's a letter from Santa just for you, let's read it'. We sat down on the couch, I opened the letter and began to read. My mouth dropped open: 'Oh, my god!' "
Each Santa letter Canada Post delivers contains the same main message with a hand-written personal postscript.

Maya's personal "P.S." said: "This letter is too long, you dumb s---."

"I went straight to Google, got the Canada Post number and called," said Ms. Da Costa. "A very nice lady at a call centre in Fredericton, New Brunswick, was shocked, and when I told her I also had a letter for Colton and was planning to let him read it when he got home, she said I should open it now just in case."

Ms. Da Costa went downstairs, picked up the letter and returned to the phone. What she read had both ladies gasping. "Oh, my god! Oh, my god!," they kept repeating.

The personal P.S. to Colton's letter read: "Your mom sucks d--- and your Dad is gay"

This brought a Canada Post supervisor to the phone.

"We were both going: 'My god, I can't believe it,' " Ms. Da Costa said. "He said: 'That's like dirt in my mouth. I can't even say it.' "

It was then that Ms. Da Costa decided she had to call the Citizen.

"I have never called the newspapers in my entire life," she said. "But other parents need to know about this. What if I had let my kid open this? I trusted you (Canada Post) to deliver Santa's letter.

"My warning to everyone is: Open your children's letters first."

However, that will not be necessary for a few days in Ottawa because Canada Post has put out an alert for letter carriers to not deliver any Santa letters, to intercept any others in the system and to send them back.

"We will check every one," said Ms. Daoust. "And we will make sure we have enough volunteers to send out new messages from Santa."

At present, the program will continue as it has for the past 26 years across the remainder of Canada and around the world. But Ms. Daoust promises a close look at the system in the future.

In 1999, an Oshawa seven-year-old received a Santa message from Canada Post that called him "one greedy little boy!"

But the latest letters are far more inappropriate and the first incident of their kind in the program's history, according to Canada Post president and CEO Moya Greene. "We deeply apologize to any families affected by this. We are shocked and heartbroken," she said.

Last year, Santa sent 1.06 million letters, enough to for recognition from Guinness World Records. "This is the largest program of this sort in the world," said Ms. Daoust. "We have sent 15 million letters since it began.

"Employees have volunteered with it since its inception and retired employees have stayed with us. It really is very near and dear to our 11,000 volunteers.

"The 250 volunteers In the Ottawa area are in shock and calling to ask what they can do, how they can help.

"We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there."

Canada Post 'heartbroken' over rude Santa letters

I think they might be over-reacting a little bit. I like the idea of a "Rogue Elf"

Anyone can volunteer to be a letter-writer for Santa I kid you not. Think of the healthy and eye-opening Santa-variations, Santa-flavours that children could be exposed to:

Marxist-Leninist Santa
National Socialist Santa
12-Steps Santa
Organic Santa
Manic Depressive Santa

Actually, Santa does get a piece of his mother every now and then. How do you think little Nicky ever saw the light of day?