He writes by hand first
Every reply is drafted in ink before it is set for print. The Wonderworks keeps the ink, the paper weight and the flourish on the C in Claus consistent from year to year — children notice.
A North Pole biography
Santa Claus, in his own century and ours
Seventeen hundred years of one story: a bishop who gave in secret, a green-robed Father Christmas, and the man at the desk upstairs who still answers every letter by hand. Here is the whole of it, for the parent who gets asked hard questions.
The beginning
A bishop in Myra
The oldest thread of the story is a real man: Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century bishop remembered for giving in secret — coins left through a window at night so a family could keep its dignity. Every part of Christmas that happens quietly, without anyone being thanked, comes from him.
Across Europe
Sinterklaas, Father Christmas, Père Noël
The story travelled and changed shape. Shoes by the fire in the Netherlands. A green-robed Father Christmas in England, less about presents and more about feasting. In each country he picked up a new name and lost none of the old habits.
The move north
The Pole, the reindeer, the one night
By the nineteenth century the writers had settled the details: a house at the North Pole, a workshop, nine reindeer, and the impossible logistics of one night. It suited him. The Pole is quiet, cold, and nobody drops in unannounced.
Today
A working desk
He is, in the end, a man with a very large correspondence problem. The letters arrive from the last week of November onwards and he answers them from a desk on the top floor with a window that faces the lamps of the village.
How he works
He reads the whole letter
Not just the wish list. The dog's name, the missing tooth, the little brother who is scared of the dark — those are the details that make it into the reply, and they are why children believe it.
He keeps a strict December
Cocoa at four. Nice List review with the ledger clerks at five. Reindeer at first light on the 23rd. The routine has not changed in living memory and he does not intend to change it now.
On file at the North Pole
- Full name on file
- Nicholas Claus
- Known as
- Santa, Father Christmas, Sinterklaas, Kris Kringle
- Residence
- North Pole Wonderworks, above the village
- Office
- Top floor, Santa's Office
- Flight crew
- Nine reindeer, lead by Rudolph
- Correspondence
- Answered personally, every one
Let him write to your child this year
The Secret Santa Interview takes a few minutes. What comes back is a letter that knows your child's dog, their worry and their wish — in his handwriting, on his paper.