Letter to Santa Template
Need your child to nail down their wish list for Santa? Grab this free letter to Santa template and get the list done!
Welcome to Day 3 of 12 Days of Free Christmas Printable Activities. This is my thank-you to you for being a part of this community and supporting this small family business.
A few weeks ago the Target and Amazon toy catalogs arrived in our mailbox. My 9 year old and 5 year old pulled them out of a stack of mail, shouted with excitement and immediately started flipping the glossly pages.
“Oh look at this Lego set. It has all the Marvel characters,” my five year old son said.
“I want this stuffie and these Mario figures. Oh and Lego friends. And a new baby doll,” my nine year old announced.
As the afternoon wore on, their Christmas lists started growing longer and longer.
If your children are like mine, they’ve been talking about what they want for Christmas since October 1.
This is just one reason why using a Santa letter printable is so handy for parents. Plus it develops your child’s writing skills.
So use this simple, purposeful, and free letter to Santa template to get a good grasp on those Christmas lists!
Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links; read more here.
Pin this for later!
Why Write a Letter to Santa?
Obviously you’re here because you want your child to write a letter to Santa. But having a clear purpose can be really helpful.
Here’s three quick reasons for why your child can write their letter to Santa.
Letter to Santa is a Wishlist
This printable Santa letter doubles as a Santa wishlist printable.
Parents can use this wishlist to help them plan their Christmas shopping. It’s hard to stay organized during the holiday season, and this free printable Santa letter helps parents have to remember one less thing.
Letter to Santa helps Manage Christmas Expectations
Another reason this Santa letter template is so useful is it helps your manage your child’s expectations. As your child plans what they will write, you can let your child understand what is within your family’s budget.
Plus with holiday shortages, some toys might not be available for purchase and you need to let your child know that.
With all children, but especially when raising neurodivergent children, it is really important to manage their expectations before the holiday.
Letter to Santa can Set Boundaries
My daughter has changed her mind a dozen times about what she wants for Christmas.
So when she wrote her letter, I suggested she tell Santa three things she wanted the most. Then I told her Santa would chose one toy.
I also said once we mailed the letter, she couldn’t change her mind anymore. Santa is just too busy for that – haha!
So I set a boundary that Santa would choose one thing from her list. You can also set a boundary for gifts that are not part of your family’s values.
You could say, “Santa doesn’t bring toys that promote violence,” or “Santa does not bring technology to our family.”
So use this letter to be clear on your family’s gift-giving boundaries.
Free Letter To Santa Template PDF
This cute letter to Santa printable is a gift for email subscribers. Just scroll on down to the box and fill in your information.
It will be delivered via email and you’re welcome to unsubscribe at any time.
The letter printable is geared towards children in 1st through 3rd grade (6-9 years old). Children this age tend to already have skills for writing:
- coming up with ideas
- printing letters
- sentence formation
- using phonetic spelling.
But if you have a younger child, you can certainly use it. You can write as your child dictates or just encourage them to do their best pretend writing.
Listen, though, before you encourage your preschooler to write this letter, remember that good pencil grip habits are really important.
- Related: Improve Pencil Grip
What About Reluctant Writers?
My daughter is diagnosed with dyslexia and dysgraphia so I know all about struggling writers. We’ve tried a lot of different strategies to help her with the difficulty with writing.
Here’s how you can help your reluctant writer:
Brainstorm
- You can brainstorm aloud what your child wants to write.
- Save the Target toy catalog and had it as a resource for ideas.
- Grab three post-it notes (one for each sentence) and write the keywords together.
Spelling
- Write the date where your child can just copy it.
- Help your child stretched out the sounds for words and write letters for each sound.
- Use a writing dictionary. We have a similar product that is really helpful.
Breaks
- Use a sandtimer to write for a certain amount of time, then to take a break.
- Have your child color Santa if they need a break from writing.
Friendly Letter to Santa Printable
While I created this cute friendly letter Santa template to share with you, I have to admit that it was also for my daughter. This is like no other letter template I found online because it’s geared towards proper writing.
When my daughter was in 2nd grade, learning how to write a friendly letter is a grade-level standard. Besides writing in complete sentences and using phonetic spelling, early elementary children need to use the correct friendly letter formation.
There are two skills: children need to use the correct parts of a friendly letter. The next step is to put them in the correct place on the letter.
These are the letter parts you’ll want to include:
- Date
- Greeting (ie Dear Santa)
- Body (the content of the letter)
- Closing (ie love, sincerely, your friend, etc)
- Signature (your child’s name)
In the picture above you can see where I placed the date and the greeting. The closing and signature go on the spaces in the lower left-hand corner.
Black and White Santa Letter Template
This Santa letter is purposefully a black and white template. First, this makes it low on ink, so parents can print in easily at public library or at home. But it’s also practical for teachers to photocopy as a Santa letter worksheet,
But, Santa is still usually depicted as white in clip art. That is not representative of millions of children in the US who celebrate Christmas (or hundreds of millions around the world).
With the black and white Santa letter pdf, your child has a chance to color Santa the right color for your family. Whether your child is Black, Asian, Latino, or white, they can color a Santa who looks like them.
So use this black and white Santa template to allow your child to have the chance to choose the skin color for Santa that best represents your family or your values.
Recapping Printable Letters to Santa
Here’s the summary about printable letters to Santa:
- Writing a letter to Santa has three purposes: it is your child’s wishlist, it helps you manage expectations, and it helps you set boundaries.
- Your child ages 6-9 can write the letter and younger children can dictate it to you.
- You can support a reluctant write by brainstorming the letter and helping with spelling.
- This printable use proper friendly letter format.
- It is black and white so your child can color Santa to reflect their own skin color.
Conclusion
This is the perfect time to write a letter to Santa. It’s an easy Christmas tradition but it also helps parents.
You can manage all those requests for presents and set boundaries about gifts when your child write a letter to Santa.
Plus writing a letter to Santa is motivating for the most reluctant of writers.
Grab your free Santa letter pdf printable today.
- What about Christmas thank-you notes? We’ve got them here!
- Want to build tolerance for disappointment? Check out Christmas meltdowns.