Santa letters to be zapped for anthrax

NEW YORK -- Hundreds of thousands of children's letters to Santa Claus will be irradiated against anthrax so New Yorkers won't hesitate to respond to this year's heart-tugging requests, the U.S. Postal Service said Tuesday.

"We're not going to cancel Christmas," said David Solomon, regional vice president of the Postal Service. "We certainly want people to feel comfortable about opening their hearts and bringing some happiness at this time of year."

Postal spokeswoman Pat McGovern said the mail would be irradiated so people would feel safe about dealing with letters that might otherwise fit the profile of mail to avoid -- strange handwriting, no return address and taped envelopes.

Each Christmas, the Postal Service in New York makes the Santa letters available to the public in a program called Operation Santa Claus. The tradition stems from the 1920s, when a group of postal workers were touched by the letters and responded on their own.

The Postal Service in New York usually receives around 400,000 letters, addressed to Santa Claus either at the North Pole or the Bronx Zoo -- where several reindeer live.