Letter from Santa

How to make a letter from Santa

1. Fill in your child's details: name, age, town, one to three good deeds, one wish, and a pet or a brother or sister if you like. The preview above changes as you type.
2. Pick one of the three letters. Classic is warm and traditional, Workshop news is full of elves, reindeer and gingerbread, and Short & sweet uses very short sentences for children of about three to five. Each one only mentions what you filled in, so a blank field never leaves a gap.
3. Choose who signs and where you live. Signed by switches the letter, the letterhead, the envelope and the certificate between Santa and Father Christmas together. Where you live swaps the three letters for three summer ones for Australia and New Zealand.
4. More than one child? Press + Add another child. Each new child starts on a different letter, so siblings who compare notes get different texts.
5. Download the PDF and print at 100% (“Actual size”). For each child it holds the letter, the Nice List certificate and the envelope front, in that order.

How to help your child write to Santa

Switch the stage to Child's letter to Santa. It uses the same children, names and ages as Santa's reply, so you type them once. For each child the PDF holds three sheets:

1. Dear Santa, a letter to fill in: “My name is…”, “I am … years old”, “This year I was good at…”, “For Christmas I would love…”, a large box to draw the wish in, and “Love from…”. Best from about five to eight, with an adult nearby to help spell.
2. Tick the pictures, for toddlers and preschoolers: big name and age lines and eight line drawings (teddy bear, book, ball, bike, building blocks, doll, paints, train) with a tick box each, plus a ninth box for their own idea. Best from about two to four.
3. Wish list: a “For” line, a “From” line and numbered lines with tick boxes (13 on A4, 12 on US Letter). Good for readers, and for writing to grandparents as well as Santa.

With Write the name and age on the sheets ticked, the name goes on every name line in the same handwriting as Santa's reply. Untick it to leave the lines blank so your child can write their own name.

How to make a letter from your elf

Switch the stage to From your elf. It uses the same children as Santa's reply, but one house has one elf, so the elf writes a single letter to all of them: “Dear Mia, Tom and Ava”, with “all three of you” where it matters.

1. Type your elf's name. It signs the letter (in green, with a little hat doodle) and heads the letterhead. If you clear it, the letter is signed “Your elf” and never invents a name.
2. Pick the letter. Arrival is for the first year: who the elf is, that Santa sent it until Christmas Eve, and the rules. Welcome back is for an elf that came last year too: it says hello again and reminds the children of the rules in a sentence. Goodbye is for Christmas Eve.
3. Pick the wording. Warm is a longer letter for reading aloud to children of about five and up. Short and silly has shorter lines and, in the arrival letter, the rules numbered One, Two, Three, which is easier for a three- or four-year-old to remember.
4. Check the date and the place. The arrival letters start on 1 December and the goodbye on 24 December. Summer (Australia, NZ) swaps the snowy lines for a sun hat, a fan and a bowl of cool water for the reindeer. The elf spells like the rest of the page: British (“practising”, “colour”) for the summer letters and when Santa's reply is signed Father Christmas, US spelling otherwise.
5. Download. The PDF is one page, A4 or US Letter; the PNG is the same page at 300 dpi; the Word file has the same words to edit.

How to write a letter telling an older child the truth about Santa

Switch the stage to For an older child: the truth about Santa. It is for a child of about eight to eleven who has asked, more than once, whether Santa is real. The letter answers honestly and gently: you asked because you are ready; the presents came from us; Santa is real as the spirit of giving, and the people who love you have been doing his work; now you are one of us. Then it gives the child a secret job, one kind deed for someone this Christmas without saying it was them, and asks them to keep the magic for children who still believe.

1. Pick the child. The letter goes to the child selected under Children, one page, and never names the others. If you have added a younger child to make Santa's reply, they stay off this letter.
2. Type how your child knows you. Signed by is the signature: “Mum and Dad”, “Mom”, “Nana and Grandad”. Two names (or “and”, “&”, “The …”) make the letter say “we”; one name makes it say “I”, so a single parent's letter reads right. “Mum and Dad” (“Mom and Dad” with US spelling) is only the example; if you clear it, the letter is signed “Your family”.
3. Pick the wording. Warm tells the whole story in seven or eight short paragraphs and suits reading together. Short and plain says the same things in a few lines each, for a child who wants the facts.
4. Add one or two things they did this year (optional). They become “I saw it when you looked after Grandad's dog, and again when you…”: proof that growing up was noticed. Leave them blank and the sentence disappears.
5. Tick what fits your house. A younger brother, sister or cousin still believes turns the general keep-the-secret line into one that names them (“Please keep the secret for Tom, who still believes…”). Santa still fills the stocking adds a line saying the stocking is not going anywhere. Your family says switches every “Santa” to “Father Christmas” and the spelling to British; Summer (Australia, NZ) swaps the line about lying awake hoping for snow for a warm night with the window open.
6. Download. The PDF and the 300 dpi PNG are one page, A4 or US Letter, dated today unless you change or clear the date. The Word file has the same words, for adding a family memory or a line of your own.

What it does not do: it cannot tell you whether your child is ready (see the next question), it says nothing about faith, and it is written for Santa or Father Christmas only. If your family's gift-bringer is St Nicholas, the Christkind or the Three Kings, download the Word file and change the name.

How to write a nice-list check-in from Santa

Switch the stage to A nice-list check-in (a gentle nudge). It is a one-page letter for a child who is having a wobbly December: Santa writes that the elves' report is in, the child is on the Nice List, and there are a few things they could get even better at before Christmas. Then he says he believes in them, that there is still time, and that he will check back with the elves on Christmas Eve.

1. Pick the child. The check-in goes only to the child selected under Children. Brothers and sisters each get their own, so nobody hears what someone else is working on.
2. Choose up to three things to work on. Tap an idea (“going to bed when asked”, “being kind to your brother or sister”, “tidying your toys away”, “listening the first time” and twelve more) to drop it on the next empty line, then change any word so it fits your child. Or type your own. Each one reads after “get even better at”, so it should start with an -ing word. Leave all three lines empty and Santa just says “one or two little things… I think you already know which ones”.
3. Add one good thing to praise (optional). “The elves noticed that you helped Grandma carry the shopping” makes the letter feel fair: noticed for the good, not only the hard bits. Leave it empty and the sentence goes.
4. Pick the wording. Gentle is five or six short, warm paragraphs. Short and funny has Rudolph falling over in a happy dance and Santa admitting that Mrs Claus says he leaves his boots in the hallway.
5. Sign and download. Santa or Father Christmas (British spelling), a winter or summer Christmas, A4 or US Letter. The PDF and the 300 dpi PNG are one page; the Word file has the same words to edit.

What it never says, whatever you type around it: no coal, no “no presents”, no naughty list, no “bad”, and nothing about the elves watching. The tone rules are checked by an automatic test on every wording. The words you type yourself are printed exactly as you typed them, so keep them kind too.

Questions

Should Santa send a naughty letter?

Plenty of parents search for a “naughty letter from Santa” in December, usually after a run of bedtime battles or sibling squabbles, and the templates they find tend to threaten coal, warn that the presents are at risk, or say the child has been moved to the naughty list. This page does not make those, on purpose. A threat works for a day or two at best, and then either the child calls the bluff (the presents arrive anyway, and the next threat means nothing) or a younger child spends the run-up to Christmas genuinely frightened. Children also tend to hear “you are naughty” as a verdict on who they are, not on what they did, and a child who believes they are already on the wrong list has little reason to try. A letter that says “you are on the Nice List, here is one thing to get even better at, and I believe in you” gives them a goal they can reach. To make it work, name one or two concrete behaviours, not a general “be good”: “going to bed when asked” is something a five-year-old can do tonight; “behaving” is not. Then catch the next good try and praise it straight away (“that's exactly what Santa meant”), even if it was only half done. Read the letter together once, keep it somewhere they can see it, and do not bring it up as a warning; the nice-list check-in is built for exactly that.

How do I tell my child Santa isn't real?

First find out what they are really asking. A child who asks “Is Santa real?” once, in passing, may only want reassurance. A child who asks again, has a theory (“the tag is in your handwriting”), or says a friend told them, usually wants the truth, and deserves it. “What do you think?” is a good first answer, because their reply tells you which kind of question it was. There is no right age: some children work it out at six, some still believe at eleven, and the signs matter more than the number. Choose a calm, private moment, not Christmas morning and not with younger children in earshot; a few weeks before Christmas gives them time to enjoy being in on it. Say plainly that the presents came from you, then give them the part that is still true: Santa is the spirit of giving, and now they are one of the people who keep it going. Hand them a job straight away, such as choosing a stocking present for a younger sibling or doing one secret kind deed, so the news feels like a promotion rather than a loss. If there are younger brothers, sisters or cousins, ask them to keep the secret, because it is the little ones' magic until they are ready. Expect mixed feelings: some children are relieved, some are sad or cross for a day. Let them feel it, and never tease them for having believed. Some children take the news in best on paper, alone, before they talk about it; the truth-about-Santa letter above is written for that.

When does the elf arrive, and where should the letter go?

Most families have the elf arrive on the morning of 1 December, and many American families on the day after Thanksgiving, then leave on Christmas Eve; that gives 24 or more mornings of hide and seek. The tradition became widespread after the 2005 picture book The Elf on the Shelf, but this page has no connection with it: the elf in our letterhead is just a pointed hat with a bell, so the letter works for any elf toy you already have. Prop the arrival letter against the elf wherever the children come first in the morning, usually the breakfast table, and read it aloud together. The first morning is the one children remember, so put the elf somewhere easy to find.

What should the elf write in the first year?

Three things, and not much more: who the elf is and why it has come (Santa sent it to stay until Christmas Eve), the rules, and an invitation to talk to it. The usual rules are that the elf must not be touched or its magic fades, and that it flies to the North Pole every night and lands somewhere new by morning. Keep them gentle. Our letters say the elf tells Santa “how Christmas is coming along”, never that it is watching for naughtiness, and they never threaten that Christmas will be cancelled; plenty of parents find the spying version makes anxious children more anxious, not better behaved. Children who are told they can talk to the elf often do, every day, which is half the fun. In the second year, use Welcome back instead: children who already know the rules find a long explanation boring.

How should the elf say goodbye on Christmas Eve?

Keep it happy: a thank you, a promise to come back next year, and a reason to go to bed early. Both goodbye letters do that; the warm one thanks the children for the giggles and hide and seek, the short one says the elf's bags are packed. They are written to be read on Christmas Eve itself (“tonight I fly home”), so leave the letter out on the morning or afternoon of the 24th and let the elf vanish overnight with Santa. If your elf leaves overnight and the children find the letter on Christmas morning instead, download the Word file and change “tonight” to “last night” before you print. Children who are sad to see the elf go cope better with a date to look forward to, so point to next December on the calendar.

What if a child touches the elf?

It happens, usually by accident, and the child is often more upset than anyone. Fix it fast and kindly; it should never be a punishment. The common fixes are a sprinkle of “elf magic” (a pinch of cinnamon, sugar or glitter) next to the elf at bedtime so it recovers overnight, or a short sorry note from the child to Santa, left beside the elf; either way the elf is back in a new spot the next morning, which shows the magic came back. None of our letters says a touched elf is gone for good, only that its magic can fade. If a grown-up needs to move the elf (out of the dog's reach, say), many families use kitchen tongs or oven gloves “so the magic is safe”, which children find very convincing.

Can one elf write to two or three children?

Yes. Add each child with + Add another child and the elf's letter is addressed to all of them, in one greeting, with “you both” or “all three of you” in the lines that need it. Three 30-character names and a 20-character elf name still fit one A4 or US Letter page, in every letter and wording. Only the children's names are used; the good deeds, the wish and the pet stay in Santa's reply.

Is this letter from Santa template really free to download as a PDF?

Yes. There is no sign-up, no watermark, no paid version and no limit; make one for every child in the family or the whole class. The PDF and the PNGs are made inside your browser, so nothing waits on a server.

Should the letter come from Santa or Father Christmas in the UK?

Either is right, and British families use both. Father Christmas is the older English name: in the 1600s he stood for grown-up Christmas feasting and good cheer, with no presents and no chimney. In the Victorian years he gradually merged with the American Santa Claus, who came from the Dutch Sinterklaas by way of New York, and by the early 1900s they were the same red-suited man with a sleigh. Many UK and Irish children still say Father Christmas; others say Santa. Pick Father Christmas under Signed by and the letter is signed Father Christmas, the letterhead reads “From the desk of Father Christmas”, and the envelope's return address and the Nice List certificate say the same, so nothing gives the game away. The wording switches to British spelling too: “colour”, “favourite”, “cosy” and “practising”, where the Santa letters use “color”, “favorite”, “cozy” and “practicing”. What you type is never changed, so “helped Mum” stays “Mum”. The page starts on Father Christmas when your browser is set to British or Irish English.

Can Santa write about a summer Christmas for children in Australia or New Zealand?

Yes. Choose Summer (Australia, NZ) under Where you live and the three letters are replaced by three written for a Christmas in the middle of summer, when the sun sets after 8 pm in Sydney and Auckland and Christmas Eve is warm. Santa says it is dark and frosty at the North Pole but that he knows it is summer where the child lives; the reindeer rest in the shade, saving their strength for the long flight south, and would love a bowl of cool water on a hot night; and there is a reminder to take a hat and sunscreen to the beach. None of them mentions snow, and they use Australian and New Zealand spelling (“colour”, “favourite”). They work with either signer, though most Australian and New Zealand families say Santa. The page starts on the summer letters when your browser is set to Australian or New Zealand English. For the best letter, make one good deed local: a day at the beach, a swimming carnival, or helping with the Christmas barbecue.

What should Santa write in the letter?

Specific beats general. “You were kind” is nice; “you shared your crisps with Sam when he forgot his lunch” makes a child gasp, because only someone who really knows them could say it. Pick one deed from home, one from school or nursery, and one thing they learned or tried for the first time (swimming a length, tying laces, reading a whole book alone). Keep the wish to the thing they actually asked for. The letter never promises it will come; Santa says he and his elves will see what they can do, which leaves you room if it is sold out or too much.

How do I make it look like it came from the North Pole?

Tick Add a “From the North Pole” envelope front. It prints Santa's return address, a stamp and a North Pole postmark with your date. Cut along the dashed line (225 × 150 mm) and glue it onto a C5 or 6 × 9 inch envelope; an A4 or Letter page folded once fits inside. A few touches help: thick cream paper (120–160 g/m²) for the letter, a real red wax seal or a sticker on the flap, and the envelope left on the doorstep, under the tree or by the fireplace on the morning you choose. If you want a real postmark, the post office in the town of North Pole, Alaska, has for many years added its own holiday postmark to stamped letters mailed to it inside a larger envelope by early December; check the US Postal Service's current instructions before relying on it.

Should I print on A4 or US Letter?

Pick the paper in your printer. The page starts on US Letter (216 × 279 mm) if your browser is set to US or Canadian English and on A4 (210 × 297 mm) everywhere else. Letter is 18 mm shorter, so a long letter is set slightly smaller on it. Everything stays at least 6 mm inside the paper edge, beyond the strip most home printers cannot reach. The certificate and envelope pages are landscape; most printers turn them automatically. The paper has a very pale cream tint, which costs almost no ink.

What if the letter is too long?

The text starts at 20 pt and steps down half a point at a time until the whole letter, signature and P.S. fit on one page, never below 14 pt so a child can still read the script. If it still does not fit, the page says so, names the child and holds back the downloads until you shorten a good deed or the wish. Nothing is ever cut off without telling you.

How do I keep the magic for older children?

Nothing on the pages mentions this website: no logo, no web address, no “made with”. Print when the children are out of the room, and collect the pages from the printer straight away. For eight- to ten-year-olds, the more specific the deeds, the more convincing it is; mention something that happened in December. The letters never say Santa watches or sees everything, because the point is that the child feels noticed, not observed. When a child asks outright whether Santa is real, many families answer with a question (“what do you think?”) and let the child lead. When they are ready for the answer, the letter for an older child tells them gently.

What is the Nice List certificate?

Page 2 for each child: a landscape certificate with their name in the same handwriting, “has been kind, helpful and thoughtful all year”, the year from your date, a red wax seal and the same signature as the letter (Santa Claus or Father Christmas). Frame it, or roll it with a ribbon and put it in a stocking. For a certificate on its own, with a line saying what it is for, six designs and one page per child for a whole class, use the Nice List certificate maker.

Are my child's details private?

Yes. The letter is written and drawn on your own device; the PDF is assembled in your browser, and no name, town, deed or wish is ever sent to us or anyone else. So you do not lose your work on a reload, the page keeps what you typed in this browser's own local storage, on this device only. Press Clear saved details to delete it, for example on a shared computer.

How do I get a toddler to “write” to Santa?

At two or three, ticking and colouring is writing. Print the Tick the pictures sheet, read each picture out loud and let them tick, circle or colour the ones they want; most toddlers will happily tick all eight, and that is fine, because the letter is about the asking, not a shopping list. The ninth box is for anything else: a drawing, a sticker, or a picture cut from a toy catalogue and glued in. For the name, most children start writing their own somewhere between four and five. Before that, untick Write the name and age, write the name on the line yourself in pale highlighter and let them trace over it, or let them make “their mark” next to your writing. A handprint or a crayon scribble on the “Love from” line counts.

What do we do with the letter to Santa afterwards?

Families do it in very different ways, and all of them work. Some post it: in the UK, Royal Mail has for years replied to letters addressed to Santa/Father Christmas, Santa's Grotto, Reindeerland, XM4 5HQ, when they are posted by early December with a return address; Canada Post answers letters to Santa Claus, North Pole, H0H 0H0, with no stamp needed inside Canada; in the US, letters sent to the USPS Operation Santa address can be read and answered by volunteers. Check this year's dates and rules on each service's own site before you rely on them. Others leave the letter by the fireplace or under the tree overnight and swap it for the letter from Santa in the morning, which is what the reply side of this page is for. In Scotland and Ireland some families put it up the chimney so the smoke carries it to the North Pole; for safety, let an adult do that part. Whatever you choose, take a photo or keep one copy: a letter to Santa each year is one of the nicest records of a child's handwriting and spelling you will have.

How do I print the letter to Santa sheets?

Print at 100% (“Actual size”) on A4 or US Letter; every line, box and picture stays at least 6 mm inside the paper edge, so nothing is lost on a home printer. The sheets are white, the pictures are outlines to colour in, and the writing lines are a pale grey, so black and white or the printer's draft mode is fine and costs very little ink. Ordinary 80 g/m² paper takes crayons and pencils; for felt tips or paint, 120 g/m² or thicker stops the colour soaking through. The writing lines are 13.5 to 14.5 mm apart, roomy enough for the large letters of a five-year-old.

Can I edit the text in the PDF afterwards?

Not in the PDF: each PDF page is a 300 dpi picture of the page, so the handwritten font looks the same on every printer, and a picture's words cannot be selected. You have two ways to change them. Edit the boxes above and download again, which takes seconds. Or press Download Word (.docx): that file holds the same letter as real text, fully editable in Microsoft Word, Google Docs, LibreOffice Writer and Apple Pages, so you can rewrite any sentence, add a line about the new puppy or change the font before printing.

Can I get this letter from Santa as a Word template?

Yes, free and without signing up. Fill in the child's name, age, town, good deeds and wish, pick the text, the signer (Santa, or Father Christmas with British spelling) and A4 or US Letter, then press Download Word (.docx). The file has the North Pole letterhead, the date, the letter word for word as in the PDF, the signature and the P.S., then the Nice List certificate on the next page, and each child on new pages. In the Dear Santa mode it holds the fill-in letter with the name and age and blank lines to write on. The drawings come too: the letter page has the PDF's own frame behind the words (the cream paper, the red and gold border, the gold star, the fir branches and holly round the letterhead, the divider and, when the letter leaves room, the snowflakes at the foot), with the letterhead and the letter spaced to sit inside it, and the certificate has its gold-bordered frame with holly in each corner and the red Nice List seal above the date and signature. The words are set in Georgia, a serif every copy of Word has, rather than the PDF's handwritten face. Word reflows the text, so a very long letter runs onto a second page there instead of being shrunk to fit, and that second page has no frame. In the Dear Santa mode the fill-in letter keeps its plain ruled lines.