Unlike on Christmas Eve, Santa relies on Australia Post to deliver his letters so final delivery times vary depending on where you live so the Posties have time to get your letter to you. Here are the deadlines…

Melbourne                                             midnight Tuesday 20 December

Victoria and other capital cities      midnight Monday 19 December

other states                                            midnight Sunday 18 December

However, the sooner you order the better chance it will arrive before Santa – the Posties do get very very busy this week! And it’s good to let the kids use the activity ideas included with each letter, too.

It’s not just that there is the little surprise added, stickers on the envelopes and the craft and recipe ideas are a great idea. Having different letters for each child was a nice change (yet so important for realism to my thinking).

But what really blew us away was the obvious fact each letter is adjusted for the child. You changed the good deed wording I typed to actually fit the letter wording and added lovely comments that could only have been done manually – a truly personalised letter that made my son stand up straight and feel proud of his achievements this year.

I’ve let the kids play with previous letters and never had any desire to keep one. This year’s letters are going in their scrapbooks – and so will next year’s!

Thank you for a wonderful addition to our Christmas celebrations – and this blog of people’s stories and traditions is heart warming.

While repairs or an alternative is being worked on, every letter will be manually processed and an Elf written postmark will be used to ensure the mail is not delayed. Maybe these hand marked envelopes will become collectors items and treasured more highly than the usual postmarks!

And this week, we’re running a competition through our Twitter profile, too – all the details are in our specials page but the short version is just retweet any of our tweets this week to be in the running.

MERRY CHRISTMAS AUSTRALIA!!!!!!

Have a fantastic day full of love and laughter,

Tash and all of Santa’s Elves

ALL my grand kids will Love Santa next year!

Wednesday 22nd December if you live in Melbourne

Tuesday 21st December if you live in another capital city or elsewhere in Victoria

Monday 20th December if you live in other areas (although very remote places may need longer for the Postie to deliver letters in time.)

Ordering is easy – just fill in our online form and we’ll take care of the rest for you on behalf of Santa.

SO very Santa to give something for kids’ happiness as well as answering their letters. Thank you!

Yet many people struggle with writing letters (how do I start, what can I say, etc) so we’ve added a template to our site to make it easier.

Free to use, our Dear Santa template can be printed off and used to write a well structured letter to Santa, or just use the text and write out your own letter altogether.

By using this template, children can write to Santa and include ore than a list of gifts they want – it teaches them to show interest in others and end a letter gracefully. The template (like Love Santa letters) also encourages children to recognise their achievements and be proud of them.

So, please feel free to use this template and send Santa some beautiful letters this Christmas!

Why no increases, even after some rough financial years and two postage increases? Because Love Santa is not about the money, it’s about the love of Christmas, magic and children.

We know others are selling letters for more than us, and not always at Santa’s request, but we’ll stay with covering costs and making people happy.

And of course our letters still contain a number of personalised details, craft and cooking ideas and a small surprise mailed individually to each child.

Our twitter name is @LoveSantaAu (we want to emphasise our Australian connections!) and we’d love to say hi so let us know when you find our profile