Every year, letters arrive at the North Pole with only a first name, a street with no town, or handwriting nobody at the workshop can quite make out. This story follows one such letter: an envelope that reaches the workshop with an address that seems to be missing something important, and the small process by which it gets read anyway.

What the story is about

It is not really about geography. The story uses a puzzling address to look at something children often wonder without saying it aloud: whether a letter that is not quite right will still get through, and whether Santa needs the same information a postal worker does. The answer the story reaches is its own; it is worth letting the story make that point.

If you are helping a child write their own letter

A child about to write a letter to Santa sometimes worries about getting the details right: the address, the spelling, the wording. How to Write a Letter to Santa covers what actually needs to go in a letter and what does not, without turning the page into anything a child submits or sends through this site.

For reading this one aloud, Reading Aloud Well has practical suggestions on pace and pausing that apply to any of the stories collected in the Bedtime Stories About Santa Claus section, this one included.