Toms River 'Elves' Write To Kids Who Were Told Santa's Not Real

TOMS RIVER, NJ — Yes, Montville munchkins, there is a Santa Claus. Just ask his elves from Toms River High School East, who are writing messages to the first-graders in hopes of putting the magic back in Christmas.

Each year, the students in Casey Daniel's journalism class at Toms River East write letters to area children as part of the Elf Letters Project, a long-running effort that has been leading a quiet existence for more than 30 years since Daniel's mother started it when she was teaching at Toms River North.

The high school students write personalized letters to kids in the Toms River area whose parents have signed up for them. The letters are postmarked from the North Pole and sent directly to the kids' homes.

As word spread last week of what happened at Cedar Hill School, where a substitute teacher told a classroom of first-graders that Santa isn't real— angering many parents and setting off a controversy on social media — Daniel was put in contact with parents of the Montville students and offered to have her students add the first-graders to the letter-writing list.

So far, the Toms River elves have 15 Montville students to write to, and they have requests for more than 100 letters total to pen to children.

"It's the parents' preference" on their children receiving the letters, Daniel said. One of the Montville mothers has been emailing her information from families who want to participate. The letters are being mailed directly to the homes of those children, Daniel said.

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Daniel's students told WOBM writing the elf letters brings them great joy.

"This is my favorite part of this class, and it brings back the memories and joy of my own childhood," Julia Zulin said.

"Around this time of year, keeping that spirit alive for the younger kids makes it more magical and being able to be the person that gives them that feeling is just amazing," said Mallory Tonra.

The letters are personalized thanks to a form that parents fill out that includes not just the basics of the child's name and age, but other details, such as siblings' names and something the child did recently that was good, along with their Christmas wish list. And the students, members of her journalism class and the creative writing class, collaborate, with some doing the artistic handwriting, others creating the words and decorating the letters and more.

Zulin told News 12 New Jersey they even throw in some glitter to make it even more magical.

Daniel said the Elf Letters got started because her mother, Maureen Madden, who taught at Toms River North and later was principal at Toms River East, and Madden's friends were at their wit's end trying to convince their own children to pick up their rooms and behave as Christmas approached. The letters aimed to get them in line (think "Elf through the Mail" instead of "Elf on a Shelf!").

Daniel still has the first letters she received — "I was 4 or 5 years old" when her mother and Ann Baldi started writing the letters — tucked safely in one of her Christmas bins. Now that she has children of her own, they have taken on an even more special feeling.

She started the project with her classes in 2006, and said her students really look forward to doing it. Some of the students writing the letters were on the receiving end when they were younger, and they really enjoy bringing that magic to other children.

"As my students are writing these letters, they feel a connection to the child they are writing for," Daniel said. " 'Wow, this child is 6,' and that brings back memories for them of that age."

It won’t be the first time the project has expanded beyond the district: Daniel’s students have sent letters as far as Hawaii and London, the district said.

The project has existed quietly, shared through word of mouth. And Daniel admitted some nervousness at the thought the attention might bring with it a significant increase in requests.

"But the elves are pretty magical, so I think we'll be okay," Daniel said.

Montville district officials told News 12 they were grateful for the gesture.

"It is a very kind and generous act for the students in Toms River to want to reach out to our Cedar Hill students," the report said, quoting the district's statement.

The substitute — who also dissed the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy, among others — is no longer being used by the Montville district. She might want to consider the words of the New York Sun, which answered the question of Santa quite definitively 121 years ago, in its reply to 8-year-old Virginia:

"Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He exists as certainly as love and generosity and devotion exist, and you know that they abound and give to your life its highest beauty and joy. ... Nobody sees Santa Claus, but that is no sign that there is no Santa Claus. The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. ... Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world."

Updated with additional comments from Toms River East teacher Casey Daniel.

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Photos by Toms River Regional Schools, published with permission