Greetings from the north pole

I learnt today that here in the Greatest of Britains (not any of the lesser ones), if you write to "Santa, Reindeerland, SAN 1TA" before the 13th December, Royal Mail will deliver your letter directly to the red-coated, beardy bloke himself and hang around long enough to return with his personal reply.

You can imagine how this must have come about can't you. Every year 56 squillion (give or take a few hundred) sprogs and sproglets scribble down their Christmas wish lists, address them to Santa at the north pole and pop them into the post box expecting him to make their wildest dreams come true. The posties can't stamp them with 'address unknown' and return to sender because they'd shatter the illusions of all those cutey-wooty ikkle kiddies and risk psychologically scarring them for life. Neither can they just bin them because then they'd assume Santa received their letters, but was too mince pie-eyed to care.

It microwaves the icy cockles of my ticker to think the big, bad, faceless Royal Mail are prepared to dedicate so much time and energy to serving the needs of our nations young'uns.

Does this happen anywhere else in the world?