Despite being a busy time of year for courier drivers, Pāpāmoa's Kris Nielson also spends his Decembers moonlighting as a benevolent, letter-writing ‘Santa'.

In 2019, when unable to find somewhere to send his young children's Santa letters, Kris decided to take matters into his own hands.

'I thought if I bought a little Santa letterbox online and used social media, I could let others in the same boat know there was this option at Christmas-time.”

Securing the letterbox to his fence that first year Kris received close to 300 letters from local children.

Working on the premise that it's better to give than to receive, Kris donned his Santa hat and mailed replies to every child who had provided a return address.

Getting into the full swing of the season that year, Kris and his family decked their house with boughs of twinkling lights and joined in the Christmas Light Trail.

Unfortunately, within weeks someone had stolen all of these from the front of their property.

But even this couldn't turn Pāpāmoa's own Kris Kringle into the Christmas Grinch.

'I almost ruled out doing anything like that again,” says Kris.

'However, I really enjoy reading the letters from the kids as they tell me everything they've been doing.

'And the funny ones who say: ‘I haven't been a good boy this year, but I think I'll be better next year if you could just give me this or that...'”

Pāpāmoa's young residents clearly enjoy having this ‘santa mail' operation in their backyard, with Kris receiving nearly double the amount of letters last Christmas than he did the year he began.

'The most popular pressie requests are Pokemon cards, scooters, Lego and Barbies.”

One letter he received really stood out as quite unique. 'A boy wrote to Santa with his only wish being to see his dad on his birthday – no presents, just to see his dad.”

This month Kris expects up to 1000 letters to come in the mail. This means a great need of envelopes and stamps for Kris to be able reply to them all.

'Sometimes parents will tuck a little money into the letters to help out, which is lovely,” says Kris. 'Any donations of stamps or envelopes would go a long way.”

For greater reach, Kris will take his mailbox to the Pāpāmoa Community Markets at Te Manawa ō Pāpāmoa School on December 11. 'The community loves it, and I'm so happy to keep going.”

To send a letter to Santa, drop it off into Kris' Santa mailbox at 6 Kanono Close, Pāpāmoa – or simply post it to: 6 Kanono Close, Pāpāmoa 3118.