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Calling all holiday elves! Operation Santa aims to make magic

November 24, 2025

This has been a weird year. Would you join us in helping a child close it out with a smile?

Here’s the situation: It can be tough to be a kid in California. And that was before the government shutdown and the hike in health insurance premiums and the shrinking food assistance for the poor and, well, everything else.

Last year, the state’s child poverty rate was 18.6% — nearly one of every five California kids.

That’s more than double the rate in 2021 (7.5%, or fewer than one of every 10 kids), according to government data and Kids Count.

Understand that child poverty is a fraction of this in states like Maine, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming, where it ranges from 5-8%.

California’s 18.6% ranked it among the worst of the worst, home to more impoverished kids (as a percent of total) than Texas and Mississippi. On par with Florida. And only a teeny bit better than, heaven help us, Louisiana.

Insert anguished grimace emoji here. Look, I love Louisiana. I got my first newspaper job there and lived in Hammond for nearly three years. But Louisiana and Mississippi are among the poorest states in the nation. California is among the richest.

It breaks your heart. Doesn’t it feel shameful?

If you can’t tell, we were raised Catholic, and we’re trying to guilt you into donning your virtual Santa suit and adopting a kid’s letter to Santa through the U.S. Postal Service’s annual “Operation Santa.” (Letters are currently being accepted, if you’d like to reach out for a little holiday help yourself.)

FOTO ARCHIVO

Rick Nease Detroit Free Press 2007

“Dear Santa, I love you,” began a letter from Armik to the North Pole’s big guy a couple of years ago. “My mommy tries so hard to create Christmas for me and my sister. Would be nice if you could help her out a little.”

I wound up adopting a letter from Maria that year. “I work full time and am raising two of my grandkids who are 7 years old — twin boys,” she wrote. “I am really struggling. Any help would be appreciated. Thank you.”

It was truly a joy to amass new jeans and shoes and shirts and toys for those twin boys and send it all off, wrapped in a pretty box, knowing it arrived with a return address from the North Pole itself. Magic!

An elf waits in the hallway ready for a ride on Metrolink's Holiday Express Train, which left the Redlands-Downtown Station on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG) — An elf waits in the hallway ready for a ride on Metrolink’s Holiday Express Train, which left the Redlands-Downtown Station on Saturday, Dec. 21, 2024. (Photo by Terry Pierson, The Press-Enterprise/SCNG)

It’s a simple to become a holiday elf. Create an account with your email address at https://www.uspsoperationsanta.com/. Letters will be posted online Nov. 17. Read through them and pick one — or two, or three — that touch your heart, and make someone’s holiday just a little bit brighter.

The last call to submit letters will be Dec. 6. The last chance for letter adoption is Dec. 13. The Postal Service recommends shipping gifts by Dec. 13 to ensure they arrive on time.

Not all the letters are from kids in struggling families. Anyone can write to Santa, after all. You’ll see requests for expensive computers and PlayStations and e-bikes, alongside wishes for kids’ tennis shoes and warm pajamas and bedtime books. Everyone, one might argue, needs a little magic at this time of year.

That might include the Postal Service itself — it had a net loss of $9.5 billion last year — but let’s not quibble about that now. Every kid deserves a happy holiday season and helping warms a hard, cold heart. Please let us know if you do this. We’d love to hear which letter you adopt and which goodies you buy and how it feels to send it all off. We’ll wrap it all together in another column. “Operation Santa” is a delightful bit of merry-making, and it really does make one feel better to give than to receive.

To work, elves! To work!

Calling all holiday elves! Operation Santa aims to make magic Orange County Register

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