Canada Post says letters to Santa will be delivered by Christmas

Children hoping to get their wish lists to Santa Claus before Christmas will have their mail prioritized as Canada Post restarts its operations.

Postal service workers returned to the job on Tuesday after the labour minister asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board to put an end to an “impasse” in the month-long strike, extending the existing contract until May.

Canada Post said that it will start accepting new commercial mail on Thursday amid warnings it will take time for deliveries to ramp back up to speed.

But the Crown corporation also signalled that mail destined for the North Pole will get special treatment.

“Please know that it will take time to stabilize our operations; however, like always, letters to Santa are handled with special care,” Canada Post said in a statement Wednesday.

“The scanners in our plants are set up to locate Santa letters, which are identified by the HOH OHO postal code. This allows us to deliver these letters straight to the North Pole.”

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Canada Post said that all letters mailed to Santa by Dec. 23 will be prioritized for direct delivery.

The Santa Letter Program has been part of Canada Post’s operations for 40 years and in 2023 delivered some 14 million letters to the North Pole.

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As the strike left the fate of communications with Santa Claus up in the air this year, some Canadian families have relied on online options or community initiatives such as libraries to get their messages to Saint Nicholas.

The postal service warned that Santa “won’t have time to respond to letters received through the mail this year,” but wish lists will make it in time.

Canada Post also suggested that “Santa is looking forward to reading all the letters he receives,” even during what has been historically a busy season at the North Pole.

The national mail carrier said in an updated statement that its network became fully operational Wednesday afternoon.

However, it said stabilizing operations “will take time” and that Canadians should expect delivery delays through the remainder of the year and into January.

“Mail and parcels are being processed on a first-in, first-out basis, meaning the items in the network the longest are processed first,” the statement said.

“We thank Canadians for their patience as we work safely to stabilize our operations.”

Canada Post said it will begin accepting new international mail on Dec. 23, as the system works through a backlog of international mail and parcels.

— with files from Global News’s Katie Dangerfield and Sean Boynton