Saturday, December 15, 2007

Naughty Santa

Canada Post has shut down its "Write To Santa" program while police try to hunt down a "rogue elf" worker that sent bawdy letters to children requesting letters to Santa. "Everybody here is so shocked," said Canada Post spokeswoman Cindy Daoust. "Disappointed doesn't begin to describe how we feel."

The situation came to light when Ottowa resident Rosalyn Da Costa opened letters that Santa had sent to her two children. Each Santa letter delivered by Canada Post contains the same main message with a hand-written personal postscript. 2-year-old Maya's personal "P.S." said: "This letter is too long, you dumb shit."

At the suggestion of a supervisor at Canada Post, Da Costa opened the other letter sent to her 10-year-old son, Colton. The personal P.S. to Colton's letter read: "Your mom sucks dick and your Dad is gay." "We were both going: 'My god, I can't believe it,' " Da Costa said. The Canada Post supervisor remarked, "That's like dirt in my mouth. I can't even say it."

Canada Post put out an immediate alert for letter carriers to not deliver any Santa letters, and to intercept any others in the system and to send them back. "We will check every one," said Daoust. "And we will make sure we have enough volunteers to send out new messages from Santa."

In 1999, a seven-year-old received a Santa message from Canada Post that called him "one greedy little boy!" But the latest letters are far more inappropriate and the first incident of their kind in the program's history, according to Canada Post president and CEO Moya Greene. "We deeply apologize to any families affected by this. We are shocked and heartbroken," she said. "We firmly believe there is just one rogue elf out there."

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