THIS STARTS SEPTEMBER 14TH!
🧑‍🎄🎄🎅💌
USPS OPERATION SANTA 2026, STEP-BY-STEP CHECKLIST! 🎄🎁


Want to send a letter to Santa through USPS Operation Santa? SAVE THIS POST and check off EVERY box before mailing! Missing important information could keep your letter from being included.


☐ 1. WRITE YOUR LETTER TO SANTA
Tell Santa a little about yourself and what you're wishing for this Christmas! 🎄


☐ 2. WRITE YOUR FULL FIRST + LAST NAME
Make sure the letter writer's full name is included.


☐ 3. PUT YOUR FULL ADDRESS INSIDE THE LETTER


Include:


🏠 Street address
🏢 Apartment number, if you have one
🏙️ City, state & ZIP code


☐ 4. MAKE YOUR WISH LIST SPECIFIC
Instead of just writing “toys” or “clothes,” include details!


Examples:


🎮 Exact game or toy name
📚 Book title
👕 Clothing size + preferred color
👟 Shoe size
🧸 Specific character/style


Put your most-wanted gifts toward the top of your list!


☐ 5. WRITE CLEARLY & LEGIBLY
Santa's helpers need to be able to read your letter!


☐ 6. KEEP THE LETTER FLAT
Avoid glitter, beads, macaroni, thick glued decorations or other 3D items that could cause problems when the letter is processed.


☐ 7. PUT THE LETTER IN AN ENVELOPE


☐ 8. WRITE YOUR COMPLETE RETURN ADDRESS ON THE ENVELOPE
Put your full name and complete address in the upper-left corner. Don't forget your apartment number if you have one!


☐ 9. ADDRESS THE ENVELOPE TO:


🎅 Santa
123 Elf Road
North Pole, 88888


☐ 10. ADD A FIRST-CLASS STAMP
Place the correct postage in the upper-right corner of the envelope. 💌


☐ 11. MAIL IT THROUGH USPS 📬
Letters can begin being mailed SEPTEMBER 14, 2026!


🚨 DEADLINE: DECEMBER 5, 2026
Your letter must be postmarked by December 5 to qualify for the 2026 program.


👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 SENDING LETTERS FOR MULTIPLE KIDS?
Families can put their letters together in one envelope, which can help the family's letters stay together. Just make sure you add enough postage for the weight!


❤️ YOU DO NOT NEED TO MAKE AN ONLINE ACCOUNT TO SEND A LETTER! Accounts are for people who are adopting letters.


🎁 IMPORTANT: Mailing a letter does not guarantee that it will be posted online, adopted, or that you will receive gifts.


✅ Before you seal that envelope, go down this list ONE MORE TIME and make sure every box is checked!


🎅💌 Let the Christmas magic begin! 🎄✨

164 years ago today Robert E. Lee sat down in Maryland and wrote out a plan so bold it might have won the war for the Confederacy. Instead, a careless copy of that order would be dropped in a field, found wrapped around three cigars, and become the most famous lost document in American military history.


By September 9, Lee's invasion of the North had hit a snag. His whole campaign depended on his supply line running back through the Shenandoah Valley, but a Union garrison of some 12,000 men still sat at Harpers Ferry, right athwart it, refusing to withdraw. Lee decided to deal with them in characteristically audacious fashion. On September 9 he issued Special Orders No. 191, a detailed plan that did something almost reckless: it split his already outnumbered army into four separate pieces, scattered across miles of Maryland countryside. Stonewall Jackson would swing back to capture Harpers Ferry, other columns would take supporting positions, and Lee would push on with the rest, all of them to reunite later. It was a gamble that relied entirely on the slow, cautious Union commander George McClellan not realizing the Confederate army was divided and vulnerable.


Copies of the order went out to each of Lee's generals. And somewhere in the shuffle, one copy, the one meant for General D.H. Hill, went astray. It was used to wrap three cigars and then, somehow, dropped and forgotten in a meadow outside Frederick, Maryland.


A few days later, on September 13, Union soldiers marching into that same campground stopped to rest. A corporal from the 27th Indiana named Barton Mitchell spotted the little bundle lying in the grass, three cigars wrapped in a piece of paper. He unwrapped it and realized he was holding a full copy of Robert E. Lee's secret battle plan, signed and detailed, laying out exactly where every scattered piece of the Confederate army was going to be.


The paper raced up the chain to McClellan, who reportedly exclaimed that here was a paper with which, if he could not whip Bobbie Lee, he would be willing to go home. For once he had a golden chance: the exact locations of an enemy army divided into pieces he could destroy one at a time.


True to form, McClellan still moved too slowly to fully capitalize, giving Lee just enough time to pull his scattered forces back together. But the Lost Order forced the collision. It sent McClellan lunging at the mountain passes and set up the terrible clash days later along Antietam Creek, the bloodiest single day in American history. The order Lee confidently wrote out on this day may have cost him his whole campaign, all because of a dropped bundle of cigars.

I've never seen YTM give me a warning before listening to a song that wasnt 18+ n no share button. https://m.soundcloud.com/v-a-havelka/merkules-rich-men-north-of

Had this for the first time in a small town north east of San Antonio. It was so good, I’m going to try to make it . Just hope it’s as good as the diner’s was.
https://www.allrecipes.com/recipe/236805/king-ranch-chicken-casserole/

Scientists have discovered a 1 inch bulge roughly an area the size of Chicago at Yellowstone National Park. As you are aware, Yellowstone sits atop a massive super volcano and if it blows, say goodbye to your petty political differences, your job status, what you had for breakfast. Sobering thought, but at 1 inch I'd hardly call that a bulge and I damn sure wouldn't be bragging about it!

https://cowboystatedaily.com/2026/01/25/yellowstone-scientists-monitoring-chicago-sized-bulge-along-volcanos-north-rim/

Update on the winter storm. New models suggest the low will move further north, limiting the amount of ice and snow. Mainly just a cold rain. If no snow, I'll gladly take the rain over a crippling ice event.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DBnHF9Lzw24

Bishop Robert Barron: There was a line from Zohran Mamdani’s inaugural address yesterday that took my breath away. He said he intended to replace “the frigidity of rugged individualism with the warmth of collectivism.” Collectivism in its various forms is responsible for the deaths of at least one hundred million people in the last century. Socialist and Communist forms of government around the world today—Venezuela, Cuba, North Korea, etc.—are disastrous. Catholic social teaching has consistently condemned socialism and has embraced the market economy, which people like Mayor Mamdani caricature as “rugged individualism.” In fact, it is the economic system that is based upon the rights, freedom, and dignity of the human person. For God’s sake, spare me the “warmth of collectivism.”

#Russia #China #NorthKorea #cyber #CyberWarfare #CyberSecurity #CyberSecurityAwareness #CybersecurityNews #Iran #AI #artificial_intelligence #Microsoft #Hacking #Military
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/10/16/microsoft-russia-china-increasingly-using-ai-escalate-cyberattacks-us.html

#art #Vikings #northernlights #North

#steampunk #festival #Darlington #entertainment #England
https://www.thenorthernecho.co.uk/news/25466705.darlingtons-steampunk-festival-tees-cottage-pumping-station/