Ever since the U.S. Postal system had installed the groovy new machines to sort the mail things had gone more smoothly, but there were still people eyeballing stuff. And it was an unspoken thing that if any postal worker saw a letter that said “North Pole” or anything on it hinting that it was a letter to Santa Claus, they’d pluck it out and put it in a bag that said “North Pole.” When that bag got full someone would put it in a special van that would take it to a secret place to meet up with a waiting elf and some reindeer, who would then take the mail the rest of the way, and then Santa would know who wanted what and who had been naughty and good. It was sort of a thing that everyone in the postal service just knew to do. But if there is one universal truth about Christmas, it’s that every single year someone tries to mess it up and then it has to be saved. This is the story of the year that Daniel Wasserman, postman truck sorter of the first order and all-around good guy, got the job done (with a little help) of saving the big day, even though it wasn’t the kind of day he celebrated at all.
