Thx.

North Pole Postmark
Postmaster
4141 Postmark Drive
Anchorage, AK 99530-99998

Also, all letters should be sent by Dec 10 if mailing first class. After that they should be next day or two day mail.

No, the manner in which you sent the letters to them wouldn’t matter.

You received poor customer service, which is not surprising. You should have complained, IMHO. For the cards to get an Orlando postmark instead of the one you asked for, would be Standard Operating Procedure, especially if your package was opened by the typical USPS worker– who doesn’t give a rip. This seems to be the usual treatment, unfortunately. Some offices have even received orders from their districts not to postmark mail, and some of them are under the mistaken impression that they are not allowed to postmark mail at their own office, which is pure bunk. You often have to quote their own rules and regulations to them! Many post offices no longer postmark any mail at their post office. To justify the multi-million dollar regional mail processing centers, they send all of their mail to the sectional mail center, where it gets a “jetspray” that isn’t even a postmark, in my book. My guess is that Orlando is the sectional center for Christmas, FL. They don’t want to take the time to fulfill a legitimate request from a taxpayer, so they need to be called on it. If the office was offering a pictorial postmark, you need to be sure and specifically request that, otherwise they may not have understood yours was a special request. For the towns that offer a special pictorial postmark (not their usual, everyday postmark device) it may help for you to put “philatelic request” on the outside of your requesting envelope. Sometimes (and I must stress sometimes) that will help you get better service! Hope you have better luck next year, don’t give up. A good forum to join to discuss postal matters is the one at the Virtual Stamp Club or Bidstart.com Both are aimed toward stamp collectors and postmark collectors, but you might find it helpful.

P.S I have been doing this for some 40 years now…. been there, done that, got the T-shirt.

In addition, I send two or three boxes of Trader Joe’s Peppermint Joe Joe’s to all the postal workers with my cards. That way they get a little bright spot to their day during a very hard season. I *ALWAYS* receive a thank you card from them. It is lovely.

Christmas Re-Mailing
Post Master
23580 E Colonial Dr
Christmas, FL 32709

I just found out they were post marked Orlando? Does anyone know why this would happen? Was it because I sent it Priority?