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Filed under: Holidays, In The News, Weird But True
Santa Claus, also known as Patrick Farmer, in North Pole, Alaska, holds letters from children sent this year that the U.S. Postal Service says it will no longer deliver. Credit: Sam Harrel, AP
Santa doesn't always know who is naughty and nice. He had a registered sex offender opening his mail for him last year.
Because of the trouble screening elves and other helpers, the United States Postal Service officials are imposing restrictions on their Operation Santa program. This hits the town of North Pole, Alaska, like a blizzard. Volunteers there will not receive children's letters this year to open and answer.The Associated Press reports that one of the volunteers last year made it to a list someone definitely should have checked twice. He was a sex offender working for Operation Santa some 4,200 miles away from North Pole in Maryland.
Not wanting the play games with children's safety, however, postal officials are abandoning the 55-year-old practice of sending letters to the Alaskan town of 2,100 people so kids can get responses with North Pole postmarks.
A postal worker in Maryland spotted the sex offender last year. According to the AP, the volunteer was dropped before any children's letters were answered. Nonetheless, postal officials are skittish.
All this has led to some disgruntled elves and angry villagers back in North Pole. Like its namesake located ever-so-slightly to the north -- by 1,700 miles -- this North Pole is also heavily associated with Santa Claus.
North Pole is located 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks in the interior of Alaska and features such tourist magnets at the Santa Claus House, boasting the world's largest fiberglass statue of Santa out front. Streets have names like Santa Claus Lane and Kris Kringle Drive. Catholic residents worship at St. Nicholas Parish.
This is a company town.
And Mayor Doug Isaacson is not the least bit jolly about the current situation. He tells the Associated Press he understands the need to protect children, but postal officials are still looking at some lumps of coal in their stockings come Christmas morn.
"It's Grinch-like that the postal service never informed all the little elves before the fact," he tells the wire service. "They've been working on this for how long?"
Operation Santa is a nationwide program to answer children's letters. However, it has special significance in Alaska. And special obstacles. Because of the Maryland sex offender, officials replace children's names and addresses with computer codes that can only be read by postal service computers. Pamela Moody, a postal service spokeswoman in Anchorage, tells the AP such restrictions just aren't feasible in the far north.
Operation Santa will continue, but unless Alaskans can find a way to comply with the new restrictions by Christmas, children will be getting letters from Santa with postmarks from hometowns such as Boston and Los Angeles, rather than North Pole.
What do you think? Are postal officials protecting children or mucking up a 55-year-old holiday tradition?
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ReaderComments (Page 5 of 8)
11-29-2009 @ 7:44PM
maris said...This is absolutely horrid. Another wonderful wholesome tradition foiled by a select few. This should be treated as a serious operation where the volunteers are screened and approved. The postmark should continue to be North Pole. I can't believe they are doing this to kids. This world is a lot tougher than it used to be and kids need to have a little magic in their lives.
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11-29-2009 @ 8:13PM
runningman1086 said...I remember as a kid going to North Pole, NY. Maybe they have there own zip code and the letters could be sent there. It was associated with Santa and other christmasy decor.
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11-29-2009 @ 7:59PM
Brig said...Just tell the kids to mail their Santa Letters to the North Pole ALASKA. If it has a stamp the post office has to deliver it.
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11-30-2009 @ 1:16AM
katie said...If you noticed jbjc - in the picture all the letters have stamps on them - get a pair of glasses jbjc!
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11-29-2009 @ 8:04PM
Karen said...I work for the postal service and they are known for making bad decisions. And its just another example of the USPS not caring about customer service. We suck.
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11-29-2009 @ 10:01PM
Sally G said...Don't take it to heart; middle managers everywhere make bad decisions. Lots of postal employees are great on a one-to-one basis, but let any power-hungry incompetent "suck up" enough to get promoted, and watch out! That's why I've avoided working for large bureaucracies all my life. (Of course, smaller companies have their own problems, but at least they effect fewer people.)
Or have I just swallowed bait hook, line, and sinker? And does anyone remember what a "sinker" is?
11-30-2009 @ 12:27AM
CHRISTY said...Yeah...a "sinker" is a small weight that you attach to your fishingline to make sure the bait sinks down to where the fish are. In freshwater they're usually small lead bullets that clamp onto your line. In salt water it's a larger piece of lead, usually with a small metal eyelet that allows your line to feed thru it.
11-29-2009 @ 8:13PM
Macmillan said...Idiots populate the USPS bureacracy. Dismiss them all! Ridiculous waste of time and energy.
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11-29-2009 @ 8:17PM
Barbara said...We have been to North Pole, AK. The people there are wonderful and really look forward to answering the children's letters from Santa. I do think the letters to the North Pole, AK should continue and not let some pervert ruin a good thing.
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11-29-2009 @ 8:24PM
me said...What's next, the kids' 'Santa' letters being sent to them from Hussein Obama's moslem asss? F*ck governments. They have to goddamn much to say about everything.
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11-29-2009 @ 8:32PM
Raquel said...Thats what's wrong with America. Why should the system and the rest of America change because of a sex offender. Now you have millions of people changing their tradition because of a handful of scumbags.
Be pro-active and sensor these idiots......check their records, and keep the tradition alive!
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11-29-2009 @ 8:48PM
Irving Davis said...Please: When are we going to grow up. We have so many items that we must deal with every day that now the post office will not deliver the mail to the North Pole Alaska. Lets be reasonable, as life has changed so greatly because of GREED and STUPIDITY we now must face another bureaucratic decision made by the US Post Office because of a pedophile opening letters from children. Lets stop mail altogether, we do not need the mailers, the garbage that large corporations send to do nothing more than fatten up their pockets, outsource our jobs, and layoff people only because the board members and top executives feel that MY POCKET CAN'T TAKE the hit. I say lets stay home and watch the rich of this country fall on their butts. Let them go into foreclosure because they can't pay or wont.
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11-29-2009 @ 8:55PM
Garry said...The answer seems simple to me.
Send everything to North Pole, Alaska. Have 100% of the volunteers to help Santa handle the incoming mail be screened to keep out the pedophiles.
Newark?!!? Are there no pervets in Newark? What makes that the place to send letters meant for Santa?
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11-29-2009 @ 9:20PM
Michael Faircloth said...First off; it says "sex offender", not child molester, not rapist; sex offender, which can be a number of things. The offender in question most likely did not even commit a crime on a child, maybe he did, we don't know. Second, they are just letters! It is such a joy for a child to write a letter to Santa and get a response from the North Pole. I remember this from my childhood. The USPS should be ashamed of themselves for ending this American tradition.
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11-29-2009 @ 9:22PM
byron said...Really? All gifts come from God? then god better get his ass in gear and start paying for 18 years of Christmas presents to my girls.
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12-04-2009 @ 6:35PM
M. said...He gave you the ability to provide for your girls. You should be on your knees daily for that opportunity.
11-29-2009 @ 9:48PM
nunya said...I dont feel it is the government that has to monitor the people checking the letters I think it should be the company taking care of the letters and responding. As a Post Office employee, I feel that this is ubsurd. I think childrens letters should be answered by the appropiate adult, not a sex offender. And if that means there are 3 million stamps that say North Pole on them so be it. But I dont feel that the government should take the fall on this, it was who ever hired the sex offender to take care of this and the way it sounds it was the company in the North. So I feel if it takes one person from every post office to answer these letters then we should do that for our kids. I know I picked letters up on Saturday that are addressed to Santa. And we take care of them ourselves in my office.
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11-29-2009 @ 9:51PM
BUTCH said...JUST LET THE MAIL MAN TELL ALL THE KIDS HE KILLED SANTA TO SAVE THEM FROM THE POSSIBILITY OF BEING MOLESTED BY IMPROPERLY SCREENED POSTAL EMPLOYEE. SEE WHAT THEY HAVE TO SAY TOO THAT.
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11-29-2009 @ 9:53PM
Chels said...Aww... the poor kids that are going to be affected from this.
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11-29-2009 @ 9:56PM
scarlett said...It's sad the world has come to this. Once again a child's childhood is being taken away because of adults. As adults we know there isn't a Santa but as children we believed but in these times children can't have what we did. Those people in Alaska just wanted to give joy to children, what's wrong with that? Child Sex Offenders should NEVER see this side of the barbed wire again!!! They destroy children! And this person did it again!!!
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