There are still six weeks until Christmas – but a very special post office in Engelskirchen has already started working again: The Christ Child Post Office answers wish lists and letters from all over the world until Christmas Eve.
Starting today, children from all over the world can look forward to answers from the Christ child again. The Christmas post office in Engelskirchen, North Rhine-Westphalia, has started operations and is writing back to all children who send their wish list to the address “An das Christkind, 51777 Engelskirchen” by December 20th and provide a return address. 19 helpers assist the Christ child with his work.
And the list is long: 9,000 letters were received before the branch opened, Deutsche Post said. The first requests that reached the post office this year included a scooter with lights, a marble run and its own candy box. In addition to the classic gift wishes, the climate and the war are also an issue. One sender wished to be spared from heat and floods and longed for peace in Ukraine.
For some children it is also important to spend a lot of time with the family and that family and friends are healthy. Seven-year-old Johanna asked the Christ child: “Have you ever met Grandpa Kalle in heaven?”
Letters also come from Chile, Malaysia and China
According to the post office, the wish list office in Engelskirchen receives letters from Chile, Brazil, Malaysia, Thailand and China, but also from European countries such as Italy, the Czech Republic and Spain. The Christ Child answers in twelve different languages, and also sends letters in English, Ukrainian, Estonian, Dutch, Japanese, Polish, French, Spanish, Czech, Taiwanese and Chinese. Individual answers can also be written in Braille.
Last year, the post office in Engelskirchen answered almost 135,000 letters from 48 countries. Even now the branch is already full of yellow boxes full of colorful wish lists. Some children cut out the toys they wanted from catalogs and glued them on, some made fancy drawings.
According to Deutsche Post, letters addressed to the Christ child were received for the first time in 1985. The Engelskirchen Christ Child Post Office was then set up. There are now a total of seven Christmas branches nationwide. The Christ child can also be reached in Himmelstadt (Bavaria) and Himmelpforten (Lower Saxony), Santa Claus in the Hildesheim district of Himmelsthür (Lower Saxony) and in Himmelpfort (Brandenburg) as well as Santa Claus in Sankt Nikolaus in Saarland and in Nikolausdorf in Lower Saxony.