On the outskirts of Fairbanks is the development community of North Pole, so named by a couple of opportunists who thought their might be attention and money to be gained by having a place officially called “North Pole, Alaska” albeit 800 miles south of the geographic North Pole. And it has got some.

There is a store there called Santa Clause House, open year-round, where Santa and his staff hang out, where there are reindeer (and reindeer sausage, too!), and where you can get your picture taken with Santa in July if you like. That’s a pretty big draw.

This is also where letters from children that are addressed to “Santa Claus, North Pole” have traditionally been delivered, even without proper postage. The staff at the Santa Claus house and other volunteers open and read these letters. If there is a return address, they will send a letter to the child from Santa himself, postmarked from the North Pole.

When we were there at Santaland, we read about how, in some cases, when the letters from children revealed particularly dire situations, the good people at Santaland would forward the letter to churches, charities, or even social services in that child’s area. In all it seemed like a really great thing.

According to this story, the post office has recently announced that it will no longer be sending children’s letters to Santa anywhere but the recycling bin. And this just seems wrong. They claim it is for security, but earlier this week, the post office announced a $3.8 billion loss. I’m sure they are trying cut back where they can, but this just doesn’t seem like the place to do it. Our national debt keeps rising, and we gotta make cuts somewhere, but couldn’t we spare something like one bomber in the arsenal? I think one of those should about cover postage for our kids’ Santa letters. And who could hold up a child’s letter to Santa and just throw it away?