I've been real busy lately because it's December and I work at the post office, so of course I am

But that doesn't mean I can't show up with an unprompted PSA

Hey! Have you ever mailed a letter to Santa Claus? Have you ever wondered what exactly happened to that letter? Well wonder no longer! If it had a stamp and a return address, then odds are that it ended up on the USPS's Operation Santa page!

Every year, the USPS collects letters to Santa Claus, and processes them to black out any identifying information. Last names, addresses, things like that. Then, the letters are posted on the Operation Santa webpage and people can adopt the letters.

Once you adopt a letter, you can buy gifts for them, wrap them up, and package them. Then you get a barcode from the website, and bring them to a post office. The clerk there will scan the barcode, which prints out a label with the address on it, and sends out the gift.

It's anonymous on both ends, and is generally just. A really nice thing to do.

I highly recommend it if you have some money to spare this year and want to give a kid a moment of magic this year

It's one of those things that the post office just happened to be positioned to do, and ended up knocking it out of the park. Unfortunately, I don't think they advertise this nearly well enough, and most letters end up going unanswered

Hopefully, a few more will be answered this year

Website Link: Operation Santa - USPS

We are told we live in a world where everyone is equal, but when someone (or quite a lot of someones) suggest that the death of a rich white man might not be the tragedy we are told to think it is, suddenly all of the other rich white men are upset that that is the prevailing view, and they want to use their platforms to tell us that "yes it is and we should think it is"

If you ask most people they will tell you the lesson I learned a long time ago -- a lesson most of us learn relatively young.

Not all deaths are worth mourning. You don't have to celebrate them, but you don't have to pretend that you are sad they are dead either.

I was not a big fan of dogs, but watching my most beloved talk about, play with and randomly walk up to dogs on the street just so she could pet them and talk to their owners about them was one of the true joys of my life, and one of the things I miss the most.

So much so I even find myself going "PUPPY!" (at least in my head) when I walk past dogs or drive past them because the idea of walking past a dog without finding it adorable was something she couldn't do.

How do people spend their life with someone and not find them endlessly fascinating? It just baffles me someone could do that.

The posts are about 90% "we are not going to suggest he is a hero but we are going to come close", 8% "we think he should be caught then the jury should let him off" and 2% "fuck it, we're just going to celebrate this because the CEO was demonstrably evil"

Rare that you see things like this outside of brutal dictators in foreign lands.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ca/post/34247624

This will be my first Christmas without her. I've already had our first anniversary (23rd) and her first birthday (44th), and now Christmas, New Year (which we always spent together) and my birthday.

The problem with this diagram -- with this theory -- is that it assumes the outer circle can grow. That it is not moored, permanently, to the inner circle.

Also I have no idea why it veered into a discussion about a moth's DNA. That was unexpected, but very tumblrish.