H0H 0H0!
MALA ASHOK
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It's the season of Christmas and the Canadian post offices are flooded with letters to Santa Claus.
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So you're reading the title of this piece and saying, "Yes, another Santa Claus (Father Christmas) story." Well, yes and no. The title is appropriate, because this is the Canadian `Postal Code' at which Santa Claus can be reached. So what are Postal Codes? They are the Canadian equivalent of the Indian PIN Codes and U.S. Zip codes. However, the Canadian codes are unique in that they are alphanumeric (that is they have both alphabets and numbers in funny combinations and even a space!)
Code name
Historically, since Canada had a small population, it didn't have a `code' till 1969 and the present day system was adopted nationwide only in 1974. If `N' represents a number, and `A' an alphabet, every home and business has a code of the type `ANA NAN.' This naturally begs the question "how many postal codes are possible?" The answer is, "Even though the letters `D, F, I, O, and U are not used, there are 7.2 million possible postal codes! According to the government under 12 per cent of the available codes are used.
Soon after Canada got the Postal Code system in place, in 1974, staff of Canadian Post Offices started noticing a huge number of letters addressed to Santa Claus in the Christmas season. Their hearts went out to the children who received `returned letters' marked `Undeliverable'. So they tried to answer the letters themselves!
In less than 10 years there were one million letters coming for Mr. Santa and sometimes Mrs. Claus too. Thus an official Santa Claus mail response system came into being! In the spirit of the season every attempt was made to answer each child's letter in the language it was received!
The address that was assigned for Santa Claus was:
SANTA CLAUS
NORTH POLE
H0H 0H0
Canada
Children love the fact that the Postal Code is H0H 0H0. Merry Christmas to all of you!!
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