<Li> In 2006, Finland's national postal operation received letters from 150 countries (representing 90% of the letters received), France's Postal Service from 126 countries, Germany from 80 countries, and Slovakia from 20 countries . </Li> <Li> In 2007, Canada Post replied to letters in 26 languages and Deutsche Post in 16 languages . </Li> <Li> Some national postal operators make it possible to send in e-mail messages which are answered by physical mail . All the same, Santa still receives far more letters than e-mail through the national postal operators, proving that children still write letters . National postal operators offering the ability to use an on - line web form (with or without a return e-mail address) to Santa and obtain a reply include Canada Post (on - line web request form in English and French), France's Postal Service (on - line web request form in French), and New Zealand Post (on - line web request form in English). In France, by 6 December 2010, a team of 60 postal elves had sent out reply cards in response to 80,000 e-mail on - line request forms and more than 500,000 physical letters . </Li> <P> Canada Post has a special postal code for letters to Santa Claus, and since 1982 over 13,000 Canadian postal workers have volunteered to write responses . His address is: Santa Claus, North Pole, Canada, H0H 0H0; no postage is required . (see also: Ho ho ho). (This postal code, in which zeroes are used for the letter "O", is consistent with the alternating letter - number format of all Canadian postal codes .) Sometimes children's charities answer letters in poor communities, or from children's hospitals, and give them presents they would not otherwise receive . From 2002 to 2014, the program replied to approximately "one million letters or more a year, and in total answered more than 24.7 million letters"; as of 2015, it responds to more than 1.5 million letters per year, "in over 30 languages, including Braille...answer (ing) them all in the language they are written". </P>

When did the concept of santa claus begin