Santa has got mail from the Bay

Thousands of letters and postcards for Santa have arrived at New Zealand Post, ready to be delivered to the man in red.

New Zealand Post was encouraging children to write to Santa now if they had not already done so.

Letters and online postcards needed to be sent in by December 4 to be sure of getting a response from Santa in the post.

However, after that date, digital postcards sent to Santa would still get a reply by email.

"This year children can write a traditional letter to Santa and put it in the post, or go onto the Write to Santa website at www.nzpost.co.nz/writetosanta and have some fun decorating and sending their own digital postcard to Santa," said New Zealand Post spokeswoman Tina Morgan.

"Families have really embraced the interactive website and we've already had over 10,000 digital postcards sent to Santa," she said.

"Traditional letters remain popular too, and we've had more than 40,000 come in so far from individuals and schools."

New Zealand Post was working with the Blind Foundation and children can opt to be sent a response from Santa in large text or braille.

"Children have been sending some lovely messages and requests in to Santa."

One child said their Christmas wish was that boys and girls who did not have much of anything got lots of presents from Santa this year.

Another wished Santa a safe journey and said she did not mind what she got ... but if Santa had a spare scooter, she would really like a red one.

A wheels theme had been big in this year's requests with remote control cars, monster trucks, bikes and scooters all featuring highly.

Electronic toys and devices were popular, including tablets, gaming consoles and phones.

Pets also featured on the wish lists, including requests for a monkey, a penguin and a pony - though it had to be a pony that did not kick.

Santa would be busy this Christmas as 9 out of 10 children who had written in said they had been nice, and not naughty.

"That's a lot of deliveries for Santa."