Coaster Photo
Members of the Nulle family in Tinton Falls are pictured near their mailbox collecting letters for Santa.
By DENISE HERSCHEL
For the past three years, Tinton Falls residents James and Kelli Nulle have brightened the holiday season for local families by setting up shop for Santa letters in their front yard. With the bold red “Letters for Santa” mailbox displayed in the center of the lawn, children are invited to personally hand deliver their letters to St. Nick, hoping he will deliver their Christmas wishes.
The Nulle family project began in 2020 during Covid when according to Kelli, “going to see Santa and mailing letters seemed impossible.”
“Our son Brayden, who was 13, and our daughter Payton, who was 9, were sad that our annual tradition of going to see Santa and delivering our letters was not going to happen. We were in the middle of being quarantined. A friend of mine saw the mailbox in the Christmas Tree Shoppe and there was only one left,” she said.
So they bought it, knowing that the red mailbox was the “perfect fit for this magical project.”
The mailbox, located in the front of their home at 3 Augusta St., has a life-size Santa standing next to it.
“Santa also accompanies the mailbox so that children can feel the magic of the season and be able to get pictures with Santa,” she added.
James, who is the principal at Green Grove Elementary School in Neptune, and Kelli, who is a special education teacher at Summerfield Elementary School in Neptune, said the response to the mailbox project has been enormous.
“Over the years we have received well over 100 letters from communities around us and families have made it a tradition to stop by and deliver their letters to Santa. The thrill of reading the letters and responding has grown as our children have grown. They have become part of the magic in reading and responding to the children. Brayden, a junior at Monmouth Regional High School, and Payton, a seventh grader at Tinton Falls Middle School, have really taken to this project in the last few years. We read the letters together as a family and most of the time the kids will write back,” Kelli said.
Some of the kids letters will feature a picture of Santa that they have drawn and some of the items that they ask for include Legos, Barbies, computer games and phones.
James said, “It is our hope that we continue to bring the Santa magic to children and families in the surrounding communities and share what is truly important this time of year.”
The mailbox and Santa will be accepting letters through Dec. 20 and the display will remain up until after the new year.