Letter Writers Alliance

The Most Famous Christmas Letter

In case you've never seen it, here is the original query letter sent to the editor of The Sun by eight-year-old Virginia O'Hanlon. Here's also a transcript from Newseum in case you don't want to bother deciphering handwriting or old newsprint.

DEAR EDITOR: I am 8 years old.
Some of my little friends say there is no Santa Claus.
Papa says, ‘If you see it in THE SUN it’s so.’
Please tell me the truth; is there a Santa Claus?

VIRGINIA O’HANLON.
115 WEST NINETY-FIFTH STREET.

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except they see. They think that nothing can be which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men’s or children’s, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no Santa Claus. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no romance to make tolerable this existence. We should have no enjoyment, except in sense and sight. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe in Santa Claus! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to watch in all the chimneys on Christmas Eve to catch Santa Claus, but even if they did not see Santa Claus coming down, what would that prove? Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that’s no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.

You may tear apart the baby’s rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, fancy, poetry, love, romance, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Is it all real? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding.

No Santa Claus! Thank God! he lives, and he lives forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, he will continue to make glad the heart of childhood.

---

Leonard Cohen's Love Letters for Sale

Quick! If you have thousands of dollars at the ready and want to purchase letters penned by Leonard Cohen to his long-time muse Marianne Ihlen, then Christie's has a deal for you. Until tomorrow, you may bid on and see and READ (with helpful transcriptions, even) seven letters written by Cohen to Ihlen from throughout their relationship. The Christie's site is really interactive and well-designed. 

I cannot decide if I think this is cool or creepy. I think I lean towards creepy. I certainly hope that all the letters I wrote to my dearest don't get picked apart on an auction block when I am gone, not that I think anyone would care, really. This problem has been on my mind lately as I contemplate the fate of the Letter Writers Alliance archive. While I am in the process of looking for an institution to take on the grand amount of mail that I've been received of since 2011, I am cloudy on the ethics of it all. None of it will be useful in research without the permission of the author, for example. Getting those permissions is a full-time job, and may not be worth it. As much as I love how letters from the past help shape my understanding of those times, I also worry about privacy issues. I suppose the dead don't care, but that's the sticky wicket with my archive. We're all still here. 

What do you think? And would you buy someone's love letters?

National Handwriting Day

Today is National Handwriting Day! Here's some gorgeous penmanship by my overly humble pal, Grace. She's 95 and while she may see some deterioration in her handwriting, I certainly can't spot it. May we all have as beautiful writing as Grace. If you're looking to improve your own, check out the International Association of Master Penmen, Engrossers and Teachers of Handwriting. It is the best resource for handwriting that I have found on the Internet. Make some printouts of their old booklets and get yourself some tracing paper. I think you'll be amazed what a little "cheating" and some practice can do for your script. There's also the Campaign for Cursive and the Society for Italic Handwriting if you find yourself hungry for more handwritten fun. Found a great site for handwriting we should know about? Share your own tips and tricks in the comments.

Ghost Stories Via Mail

The first known written reference to a haunted house in a letter by Pliny the Younger. The 1900-year-old tale concerns a rundown house in Athens that no one wants because it's, you know, haunted. But an out-of-towner buys it on the cheap and follows the ghost to where the bones are and they all live (and die) happily ever after. 

I got my own haunted letter this year. In another stroke of genius postal craft, Member Alan B. of the Hedgehog Press and Adanaland has delighted me yet again. A letter the shade of eerie light green arrived in my mailbox, sporting a curious collection of Chinese stamps and English postmarks. Within its fold, I found a small brochure of a short story titled "How the Office of Postman Fell Vacant in Offord-Under-the-Wold." It told the tale of a letter that would arrive in a small town each year, looking just like the the letter that I had received. One year, the postman got just a bit too curious about what happened after its arrival...

It was creepy and clever and everything I ever wanted out of my mailbox in October. Hope your spooky mail is all well sent and arrives alive or at least undead!

When You Ask So Nicely

Direct mail campaigns for fundraising probably constitute the majority of the mail I receive at my home address. For the most part, it goes directly to recycling. The only time I might bother to open it is if it is somehow different, somehow interesting amidst that sea of windowed, business size envelopes dotted with non-profit stamps. This hospital in Canada had a unique idea (okay, the marketers in charge of their advertising did) in asking for their donations. They let the children in the hospital decorate and create all over the boring ol' plain paper letters before mailing them out. Turns out, they got a 320% increase in donations. That's pretty impressive for mail art, I must say. 

 

P.S. Keep the feel-good mail train going this weekend by tuning in to L.W.A. Book Club on Sunday!

Gracious Exits

I am not a sports fan, but I am a Chicagoan. I was moved to tears by these well-crafted and heartfelt words handwritten to the city by Jake Arrieta, formerly of the Chicago Cubs. Yeah, he posted it to Twitter, but if that isn't a mix of the digital and physical worlds of letter writing, I don't know what is. That's class, folks. May we all learn to be as gracious and have as much to be thankful for. Also, well done on that handwriting. Very neat, full marks.

Love in Conflict

CNN has up a very touching project where you can watch beautiful animations of readings from love letters sent from people who were inside conflict zones. I even forgive it the unskippable commercials. Thanks to Member Chelsea (and Chelsea's mom) for the link. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Happy American Thanksgiving to U.S. members if you celebrate and Happy Friday to all others. Check out this neat link from Graceland for holiday greetings sent to Elvis, complete with scanned letters and telegrams, like the one above. 

Sending First Day Covers

Ever wonder how people get their awesome FDCs? That's "First Day Covers" for us non-philatelic folks. It's an envelope that has been stamped and cancelled on the first day of that stamp's release. The U.S.P.S. offers multiple cancellation options these days, from the classic looking barred example of above to elaborate color digital cancellations that are designed to compliment the stamp design. 

 

Ordering First-Day-of-Issue Postmarks
Customers have 60 days to obtain the first-day-of-issue postmark by mail. They may purchase new stamps at local Post Offices or from the U.S.P.S. website. They should affix the stamps to envelopes of their choice*, address the envelopes to themselves or others and place them in larger envelopes addressed to the various postmaster assigned to a particular stamp release. *Yes, that means you can make mail-artified or otherwise decorated envelopes for this purpose, and you can address them to people other than yourself, like the one I received in the photo above.

The U.S. Postal Service also sells its own FDCs for a premium over the face value of the stamp; however, those covers are blank, and do not have the cachets—that is the designs printed or painted on the left side of, or all over, the cover—that most collectors prefer. The cover also will need an address to which it should be returned. Since unaddressed covers are the standard collecting form for FDCs, a peelable label is the suggested form. Each cover must have inside a filler card of index or postal card thickness, with the envelope either sealed or with the flap tucked in—the latter being the preferred collecting format.

After applying the first-day-of-issue postmark, the Postal Service will return the envelopes through the mail. There is no charge for the postmark up to a quantity of 50. For more than 50, there is a 5-cent charge per postmark. To send the cover to the address to which it must be sent for the FDOI cancel, your FDCs should be sent in an outer envelope. Nowadays, to prevent an additional cancellation’s being applied in transit, or other damage to the cover, some collectors send along another return-addressed envelope in which the FDC can be returned by the USPS.

Stamp News Now has a calendar up of the 2017 releases which they seem to be keeping fairly current. Send your covers to:

FDOI - [Name of Stamp Issue]
USPS Stamp Fulfillment Services
8300 NE Underground Drive, Suite 300
Kansas City, MO 64144-9900

If you're a collector of FDCs, kindly share your tips and experiences in the comments! 

Mailing Easter Eggs

Just a seasonally appropriate reminder that you can mail things like, say, plastic eggs without a box. It's easy. It's thinking out of the box. Try it. You'll like it and so will the receiver. I got this one in the mail a few years ago and it really made me smile. Send some fun!