Santa Claus requires a lot of help on Christmas Eve so luckily he’s got plenty of help from his elves.
There are about 9,000 elves in Canada helping Santa. Their job is to help decide what toys to deliver to Canadian children as they read and deliver about one million letters to Santa each year.
Over the past 30 years, Santa has received about 22 million letters. Many of them go through Carole Desabrais, one of Santa’s helpers in London.
“I come in and collect them and once I get them all here, I set them all up for Santa to do. I get them in the right order, count them up and get them off to the North Pole,” she says.
Desabrais has been helping out for 33 years, and once she retired from Canada Post, she has sorted, stacked and sent out even more letters. She was responsible for 3,500 last year alone.
“And I read every single one. There isn't one I don't read,” she says.
She also makes sure Santa sees all of the artwork that accompanies the letters.
“Children that make pictures for me? I'll hang them up - every single one I do.”
Each year about 10,000 children from southwestern Ontario send Santa letters and Desabrais isn't the only one helping out. There are 200 elves living right here in the area.
The letters aren’t always happy, though.
“I’ll get ones that will write to me and say they can't have a Christmas because they don't have stuff for a Christmas or money for a tree,” she says.
“Sometimes I try to get some of the elves together and we'll get them something for Christmas.”
The letters come postage free, in 30 different languages, even in braille.
Santa and his helpers make sure each one gets a response.
“I love it. I look forward to making people happy this time of year,” Desabrais says.
She’s a living Christmas Carole, right here in London.
“I'm the number one elf and I’m proud of it.”
