Decorating Santa letters
by Tash Hughes of Love Santa

Writing a letter to Santa is a lot of fun (and a sign of good manners) and a great thing to do each year as you wait for Christmas.

Letters to Santa don’t have to be neat, perfect and boring – they can be colourful and fun to look at as well as read and write. When you write your next Santa letter, try some (or all!) of the following ideas:

• Use some coloured or patterned paper – don’t make it a dark colour though as then it is harder to write and draw on
• Always add a picture – Santa loves seeing children’s drawings
• Instead of writing your letter in one pen or pencil, why not swap and use lots of colours? Maybe change colour every sentence or paragraph – even every word if you want to!
• Draw a beautiful border around the page
• A typed letter is easy to read, but handwriting is more personal and looks more interesting
• Use some glitter glue to add sparkle
• Add on stickers and stamps
• Use a punch to make decorative holes around the page
• Use craft scissors to make the edge of the page interesting
• Put the page on an angle before writing so the letter isn’t just straight on the page
• Stick on some coloured paper and cut up bits of lace or ribbon
• Print a photo of you (maybe under a Christmas Tree or with Santa last year) on a piece of paper and use that for writing your letter

Once it’s done, let it dry and send it to Santa! With so much work going into it, it is great if Mum or Dad can take a photo of it to put into a scrapbook or photo album – imagine how colourful the scrapbook will be when you are 12 if you put all your letters – and maybe Santa’s letters – in there!

Tash is honoured to help Santa write personalised letters for Aussie kids each Christmas. You can find a Dear Santa template at Love Santa, a safe place online where people share their stories and traditions to celebrate the magic of Christmas. Simply complete an online form with some details about your child, and they’ll get an individual letter relating to a hot Australian Christmas and listing their good deeds. All letters are written by professional writer Tash Hughes. This article is copyright by Tash Hughes, 2011, but may be reproduced in full as long as nothing is changed and this bio box is included.