The Story of Polar Post
At the very heart of the North Pole there is a Post Office – The POLAR POST OFFICE. Every Christmas letters pour into this Post Office from the four corners of the globe, letters from children to Santa Claus, more and more each day until the elves can hardly get through the door in the morning.
Each and every one of these letters is answered by Father Christmas himself – he’s very particular like that. Written on his official notepaper bearing the Christmas coat of arms, Santa delivers all the latest news from the North Pole, weaving details of each child into his adventures.
Letters are then sent back to the Polar Post Office to be hand-addressed by the elves, stamped with this year’s First Class stamp and franked with the North Pole seal. The finishing touch is added when the letter is embossed with the one word that every child wants to hear in the build-up to Christmas – that they have been NICE.
With the aid of a little Christmas magic, letters are whisked to homes around the world, ready to be read and treasured by children eagerly waiting for their Polar Post.
The Beginnings of Polar Post by Charlotte Wood
Everyone has something that for them means Christmas. For me it is a bundle of faded blue letters, written by Father Christmas.
Every year my brother and I would write our letters to Father Christmas. This generally involved making a lot of mess, and much cutting and sticking from the Argos catalogue. Then before we went to bed we would place our letters by the fireplace, whispering to them in the hope that magic would come along and whisk them off. Sure enough when we came to look in the morning, the letters had mysteriously vanished. ‘Carried away by the North Polar Wind,’ our mother would tell us.
The wait to hear back from Father Christmas then began. We were never disappointed. Each year there was a different stamp, each year a different tale, but always the same writing paper, the same shaky signature. I could almost smell the The North Pole. These letters gave me an unshakable belief in Father Christmas as a child; they also breathed into me the sheer romance of letter writing.
I came up with the idea for Polar Post about a decade ago, however it wasn’t until the arrival of my daughter Rose in 2014 that I decided to do something about it. Like most babies Rose regarded the middle of the night as her time to party, and boy, did this girl like to party. Christmas was looming and so to stop myself from going completely loopy, I began to write letters to her from The North Pole.
No, I didn’t put her on the naughty list, (though I was sorely tempted), instead I kept myself entertained during those twilight hours by imagining the world that I have no doubt exists at The North Pole; a world of elves and reindeer, weird and wonderful foods, parties and Christmas trees.
Polar Post launched in September 2015, with the tagline ‘Letters Sent By Magic’. Our letters do not operate through a traditional postal service. Our letters are sent by magic, the same magic that has kept Father Christmas alive for so long.
By cherishing this tradition, children will build up a collection of illustrated stamps, envelopes and letters so that hopefully one day they too will have a pile of blue letters that they can read and reread, a keepsake of their childhood and this most wonderful time of year.