Santa's mailbox might be a little emptier this year, but his inbox is full.

The number of letters to Santa processed at the U.S. Postal Service's General Mail Facility in the North Side are down 43 percent, to about 2,000 from last year's 3,500, said Elizabeth Gordon, manager of the Consumer Affairs Office at the California Avenue facility.

"Maybe they're e-mailing Santa or texting," Gordon said.

Alan Kerr, who runs EmailSanta.com, said he received more than a million e-mails last year and expects even more this year. When he started, in 1997, he had 1,000 e-mails, he said.

"Kids are just getting more Internet savvy," said Kerr, 47, of Calgary, Alberta, Canada, who began the site when his niece and nephew worried their letters wouldn't reach Santa because the Canada Post was on strike.

He's kept up the Web site and added a Santa blog. Being Santa's "head elf" is the best job a person can have, he said.

"Every year, once a year, I get this amazing glimpse of humanity — every single aspect of it," Kerr said.

But Kerr doesn't think his site, which responds to letters using what he calls a combination of Santa and Internet "magic," will ever fully replace Santa's snail mail.

"There's something fun about getting (back) something in the mailbox," Kerr said. "The age kids are at when they're really into Santa Claus — it's when they're learning to write, so it's a good exercise for kids."

Pittsburgh-area post offices respond to as many letters as possible but don't have an "Operation Santa" program that post offices in other cities run, said Tad Kelley, spokesman for the Pittsburgh district. In those cities, postal workers, volunteers, businesses and charitable organizations respond to needy children's letters and often purchase small gifts for those children, according to the postal service Web site.

"When they have time, they do write back," Kelley said of local post office managers. "They're doing it out of the spirit — they want to do it. For some of them, this is their way of reconnecting to when they had kids."

Postal workers use one of several form letters to pen their replies, Gordon said. The children's letters are destroyed for safety reasons after responses goes out, Kelley said.

Many children draw on their letters or include stickers, Gordon said. Some of the more tech-savvy kids copy and paste photos of the items they desire in typed dispatches, she said.

"I like to look at the creative ones because they have the creative minds," Gordon said.

Most of the letters stick to the basics — a cursory "How are you?" and then the list — but some are more topical.

One girl, Kate, told Santa, "Sorry about the ecomony."

Still, Gordon said, most letter writers haven't toned down toy requests because of the economic downturn.

"Girls still want the pink things," she said.

Except Kate. She made sure to tell Santa, "I hate pink" before signing off.

Additional Information:

Dear Santa, Gimme ...

The most popular toy requests in letters to Santa this year are electronics • Nintendo Wii, games and other gadgets, but the following stood out in local letters:

• A Michael Jackson doll

• Fortune cookie maker

• Robot dog that 'does everything a real dog does,' including play, grow and sleep

• Big 'chex' to cash

Source: U.S. Postal Service

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