These last few weeks, I’ve been busy with Operation Santa, a Christmas-season community program coordinated by the US post office and serving children in need. Every year, children all over the country write to Santa, often c/o the North Pole, and the letters dead end at the post office, which since 1912 has pulled together an “adopt kids’ letters” program.

The West Oakland Post Office, a mail hub for a large swath of California, from King City to Napa and including San Jose, puts a fair amount of staff resources into the annual endeavor. It’s a program I stumbled upon three years ago, and this year it got a little bit of promotion with a booth at Oakland’s tree lighting in Jack London Square.

Here are kids writing letters to Santa at the booth.

 

 

Meanwhile reindeer on display at the celebration tried to sleep and pretend it wasn’t happening.