THE TENTH jubilee year of the Slovak Post project Christmas Mail last year saw 101,784 letters and drawings delivered to the address 999 99 Ježiško (Baby Jesus). Ježiško – rather than Father Christmas - traditionally delivers presents to Slovak children at Christmas. In total, 990,935 letters and drawings have been delivered during the project’s ten year history.
“This means we have yet to receive the millionth letter; I suppose we will get it during this, the 11th year,” the manager of the project, Svetlana Vallašeková, told the SITA newswire.
Apart from individual children or adults, 1,366 children’s teams also wrote to Ježiško. The Slovak Post answered 112 letters from blind or optically impaired children in the name of Ježiško in Braille.
Children’s requests have kept pace with modern times when it comes to asking for gifts: most often they want a computer or a mobile phone and modern toys; but, ever more often, there are also traditional wishes of future good health and happiness.
“Unconventional wishes include, for instance, a factory producing decorative magnets, and one boy who wished for new teeth for his mother,” Vallašeková said.
One record set during the 10th year of the project was the earliest first letter to Ježiško – a letter from Diana from Norway, which arrived on October 20, earlier than any letter in previous years.
Ježiško received the most letters, more than 12,000, on St. Nicholas’ Day, i.e. December 6. More than 300 letters were received from 26 foreign countries, SITA wrote.
