Sorry folks, it's too late to order your
Letter from Santa with chocolate coins and have it delivered before Christmas.
But we have a solution.
Download you own fully personalised Santa
Letter and envelope. Yes, we've taken our popular
Santa letter and let you personalise it. Simply enter
your personalisation details and download it immediately
together with an envelope, pop in some chocolates you've got
from the local shop and hey presto - a professional
personalised Letter from Santa. What could be easier.
And at just £1.45 it's less than a third of the price of the
one that we would send to you .......
find out more
or
..... and get an automatic
10% discount at the checkout when you order two
or more letters together.....
A
selection of delicious chocolate coins in every letter
- with this years coins thicker
and chunkier than ever.
Every
letter personally signed by Santa by handusing a traditional fountain pen and ink - not a computer
font - at no extra cost.
A
free personal
message from you within the letter.
Mention something
memorable that the person has achieved during the year and Santa will mention it in the letter
Free
postage throughout the UK
or
N.B. We can no
longer accept orders for Santa Letters for despatch to
addresses outside the UK. Orders
for Santa Letters for delivery to UK addresses will be
accepted up to and including 20 December. The last day
for posting Santa letters to arrive before Christmas will be
Monday 21 December.
N.B. Again!! All our systems are
operating at 100% and customers who have preordered
letters for despatch over this festive period can
rest assured that they have been despatched on the
date requested. We apply first class postage
to all letters and consequently, they should arrive
the following business day however, customers should
also take into account the almost inevitable delays
with the Royal Mail deliveries at this time of year.
If you have any concerns please do not hesitate to
contact us
quoting your order ID.
In his letter Santa
will mention the person's name, age, where they live
and the present they are likely to receive from him
on Christmas morning - plus:
Preview your Santa Letter and make any changes before
ordering.
Every
letter personally signed by Santa by hand
using a traditional fountain pen and ink. Unlike our competitors we do not use
a printer font or signature stamp to sign letters.
Letters despatched within 24 hours of
receipt of order - or choose your own date for the
letter to be posted
The price you see is the price you pay.
No extras added at the checkout.
An original Christmas greetings for
husbands, wives, boyfriend, girlfriend, granny or
granddad, the boss - in fact anybody
Safe & secure ordering through WorldPay
& Paypal
Christmas theme paper designed exclusively for Yours
Personally
N.B. We can no longer accept
orders for Santa Letters for despatch to addresses
outside the UK. Orders
for Santa Letters for delivery to UK addresses will
be accepted up to and including 20 December.
or
We all love receiving mail -
especially at Christmas. And who better for your
child to get a letter from this year than Santa.
What a surprise for them to see that Santa has
remembered their name, how old they are and where
they live and he also knows what they want for
Christmas.
For the tenth year running we are
offering your children the opportunity to have their
very own personalised letter from Santa with free
chocolate coins. And if you tell a friend
about our letters from Santa we will double the
number of coins in your letter. You can find
out more here.
But it is the
personalisation that makes the letter and as well as all the personalisation already mentioned above, you
are also able to insert your own personal message "from Santa" into the letter.
This is the perfect way to mention something important that has happened
during the year. It may be winning medals or trophies; bearing up well
during an illness; succeeding in exams; being good at school or just being kind
to parents and siblings - in fact it can be anything you want. But when
you are filling out the order form remember, it is Santa talking in the
letter
so please word it appropriately i.e. in the first person.
For instance enter on the form, "I saw you playing for the Avon School
football team when you won the knockout trophy in May - well done James",
and NOT "James plays football and he won a trophy in May". Press
the red button to see the text of a sample letter.
Every letter personally
signed by Santa. We won't use a printer or a
"Signature" computer font. Every letter will be signed by a real
person
using a real pen and real ink!!!
All letters from Santa are
addressed personally to an address of your choice.
We do not use postage stamps on letters from Santa which
incur a post mark from the town from which they were posted. This ruins the illusion that the
letters originated from the North Pole.
Instead we use
Royal Mail's Smart Stamp which we have discovered is more
reliable and efficient than using a postage stamp. We
will also produce a logo showing
Santa in his sleigh and the words "PRIORITY
MAIL. PRIORITY MAIL. PRIORITY MAIL. Posted at the North
Pole. To be delivered by postal company of destination
country". We then hand stamp this with a North Pole
postmark.
Although
the Royal Mail symbols still appear on the envelope we leave it to parents to
tell children that all letters from Santa start at the North Pole where they are
sent out to all the countries in the world. From there the local carrier
i.e. the Royal Mail delivers the letters to the child's address.
Postage is free of charge for
orders despatched to UK addresses. For
orders despatched to addresses outside the UK we
charge the standard Royal Mail Air Mail rate
which can be found
here. We use second class postage up
to and including Tuesday 1st December.
Thereafter we use first class postage.
We will despatch all Letters from
Santa within 24 hours. Although we work
seven days a week the Royal Mail don't (!!) and
we cannot despatch letters on a Sunday.
Alternatively, you can select a date that you
want it to be posted. This means you can
order early,s safe in the knowledge that the
letter will be posted nearer to Christmas.
However, when choosing your own date please,
please, please remember:
The date of despatch you
request will be the day it leaves our
office. Again - the date it leaves our
office - not the day it
arrives at your home.
Every year we have a small
handful of people you believe that their
Santa Letter will arrive on their doorstep
on the date they have selected. When
the letter fails to arrive the customer is
naturally disappointed.
Given the incredibly low price we are charging for the
Santa Letter, we simply cannot guarantee
delivery on a specific date.
It is suggested that if you
want the Letter from Santa to arrive during
a certain time you take into account the
inevitable delays in the mail system during
the Christmas period and request an
appropriate date of despatch.
Finally, please do not choose
a date after the Royal Mail's
the last day of posting items to arrive in
time for Christmas!! You can find last
posting
dates here.
At
just
£4.95 post free you can make Christmas 2009 special for somebody special this year..........
Credit and debit cards are
accepted for products purchased directly from Yours
Personally. We use the reputable services of RBS WorldPay
and Paypal to
carry out these transactions.
Cheques and postal orders drawn on a UK bank are welcomed
for items purchased directly from Yours Personally but we would ask that the
Order ID is written on the rear of the cheque. Cheques should be
made payable to 'Yours Personally' and forwarded to:
Yours Personally, 76 Chapel Street, Long Lawford, RUGBY,
CV23 9BE Telephone enquires can be made on 01788 544904
or email us at admin @ yourspersonally.co.uk
Or Checkout with PayPal Express
Save time and use your PayPal account information to
checkout with PayPal.
Traditionally, Santa Claus is
portrayed as a kindly, round-bellied, merry,
bespectacled man in a red suit trimmed with
white fur, with a long white beard. On Christmas
eve, he rides in his flying sleigh, pulled by
reindeer from house to house to give presents to
children. During the rest of the year he lives
at the North Pole, in Finnish Lapland, or
Dalecarlia in Sweden together with his wife,
Mrs. Claus. The names of his reindeer are
Dasher, Dancer, Prancer, Vixen, Comet, Cupid,
Donner and Blitzen. Rudolph, 'the red-nosed
reindeer', has featured in many modern aspects
of the Santa Claus myth.
Origins
The modern Santa Claus is a composite character
made up from the merging of two quite separate
figures. The first of these is Saint Nicholas of
Myra, a bishop of Byzantine Anatolia, now in
modern day Turkey famous for his generous gifts
to the poor. The second character is Father
Christmas, which remains the British name for
Santa Claus. Father Christmas dates back at
least as far as the 17th century in Britain, and
pictures of him survive from that era,
portraying him as a well-nourished bearded man
dressed in a long, green, fur-lined robe.
The Evolution
When the Dutch still owned the land that later
became New York, they brought the Saint
Nicholas' eve legend as Sinterklaas with them to
the Americas, but without the red mantle and
other symbols. Sinterklaas was Americanized to
"Santa Claus" but lost his bishop's apparel and
was at first pictured as a thick bellied Dutch
sailor with a pipe in a green winter coat.
Santa Claus appeared in various colored costumes
as he gradually became amalgamated with the
figure of Father Christmas, but red soon became
popular after he appeared wearing such on an
1885 Christmas card. His horse was converted to
reindeers and a sleigh, the black peters were
converted to elves, and, in an attempt to move
the origin of the festivities away from their
pagan background to a more Christian one, the
date was moved forward a few weeks to the
celebrated day of the birth of Jesus:
Christmas. Acknowledgement to
www.ChristmasDay.org
Origins of Santa
Claus (or is
it Father Christmas?)
It is suspected that
Santa Claus is based on a real person – the
patron saint of children who was Saint Nicholas. Saint
Nicholas was renowned for his charitable work and
was a very popular saint,
particularly in the East. Saint Nicholas
lived from 270 to 210 AD and became the Bishop of
Byzantine Anatolia – a town in Turkey. He was renowned for his generosity
and could often be seen in his red bishop’s clothes
giving sweets and gifts to children.
There are many
versions of the origin of Santa Claus (Father
Christmas) so which one do we believe. And
when did the Santa
Letter originate Well here we
have tried to investigate and come with some
answers.
In early times, many churches were built in honour of Saint
Nicholas. In the 11th century, he was were
enshrined in a church in the Italian city of Bari.
It is told that the first Crusaders visited Bari and
carried stories about Nicholas to their homelands.
The anniversary of his death, 6 December, became a
national holiday and a day to exchange gifts.
Another origin of
Santa Claus is of course from England. Here Santa
Claus is known as Father Christmas. Father
Christmas can be traced back to an old English
festival usually held in midwinter. As far back as
the 17th century pictures of him survive which show
a rotund bearded man dressed in a long, green,
fur-lined robe. The Red-clothed Father Christmas
didn’t make his appearance until the 1870’s.
In Greece, Santa
Claus or Father Christmas is the patron saint of
sailors, in France he was the patron of lawyers, and
in Belgium the patron of children and travellers.
And what about
America. Well it is in America that the Santa Claus
we now know really came alive. It is believed the
American Santa Claus started in Holland where Saint
Nicholas was known as “Sinterklaas” which over time
developed into Santa Claus. And when the Dutch
founded New Amsterdam (now called New York), they
took the name and celebrations with them.
As early as 1773
"St. A. Claus" was mentioned in the American press.
In 1809, Washington Irving (the author of "Tales
from Sleepy Hollow") wrote about Sinterklaas in his
"A History of New York." Irving described
Sinterklaas as a rotund little man in a typical
Dutch costume, with knee breeches and a
broad-brimmed hat, who traveled on horseback on the
Eve of Saint Nicholas. In 1822, Clement Clark Moore,
a poet and professor of theology, published the poem
"A Visit From St. Nicholas" (also known as "The
Night Before Christmas").
He had a broad face and a little round belly, That shook when
he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly, He was chubby
and plump, a right jolly old elf, And I laughed
when I saw him, in spite of myself; A wink of his
eye and a twist of his head
Soon gave me to
know I had nothing to dread.
Moore's Santa is a
jolly old elf who flies around in a miniature sleigh
with eight tiny reindeer. Moore even named the
reindeer by the names we know them today which are
Doner, Blitzen, Cupid, Prancer, Dasher, Dancer,
Comet and Vixen – and of course Rudolph of whom many
songs and rhymes are written.
In the nineteen
thirties an
advertising agent called Haddon Sundblom created
a Santa as a fat human instead of an elf, with a
jolly face and big beard in a Coca Cola
ad. And today, Sundblom's Santa
is the one that children and grown ups recognize around the world
and which can be seen on the letter and covering
envelope of our Santa
Letter.
From then on the
story of Santa Claus or Father Christmas continued
to develop. We know he has a “naughty and nice”
list. Children write their letter to Santa every
Christmas asking for toys and games. Nowadays
Santa writes back to the children with a "Letter
from Santa" Children who
have been naughty get a piece of coal from Santa
Claus and children who have been good all year can
expect gifts galore. We know Santa Claus has a
Grotto which was originally at the North Pole but
which has now moved to Lapland.
Letters from Santa from this site still bear
the original North Pole postmark. In his Grotto his
elves work hard making toys for girls and boys
around the globe.
But on the other
side of the coin there has long been opposition to
teaching children to believe in Santa Claus. Not
only can the commercialisation of Santa Claus and
Christmas be detrimental it also detracts from the
religious background, traditional ways and the
underlying hope of peace and goodwill at that time
of year. Indeed their are those who believe
that the Santa
Letteroffered here is a sign of
commercialisation. We on the other hand
believe that it is a "bit of fun" and in keeping
with our motto of "Keeping the Dram Alive". Others state that Santa Claus is a lie, and
that it is wrong for parents to teach their children
to believe in him. Perhaps that is the same for the
Tooth Fairy too…….
Whatever the
history, no matter where you are in the world we all
hope you have a very Happy Christmas
French: JOYEUX NOEL Spanish: FELIZ NAVIDAD German: FROEHLICHE WEIHNACTEN Swedish: GOD JUL Welsh: NADOILG LLAWEN Japanese: KURISUMASU OMEDETO Chinese (Cantonese): GUN TSO SUN TAN’GUNG HAW SUN Latin: NATALE HILARE ET ANNUM FAUSTUM
Letter from Santa
A
selection of delicious chocolate coins in every letter
- with this years coins thicker
and chunkier than ever.
Preview your Santa Letter and make any changes before
ordering.
All letters from Santa are
addressed personally to an address of your choice.
We do not use postage stamps on letters from Santa which
incur a post mark from the town from which they were posted. This ruins the illusion that the
letters originated from the North Pole.
Instead we use
Royal Mail's Smart Stamp which we have discovered is more
reliable and efficient than using a postage stamp. We
will also produce a logo showing
Santa in his sleigh and the
words "PRIORITY
MAIL. PRIORITY MAIL. PRIORITY MAIL. Posted at the North
Pole. To be delivered by postal company of destination
country". We then hand stamp this with a North Pole
postmark.
