Free letter for blind children

Blind or partially sighted children can write to Santa and get a free reply in Braille, audio or large print.

What to do

Father Christmas's chums at the Royal National Institute for the Blind help him translate letters, so kids can read his replies themselves and not rely on sighted people to read them out.

What to include in the letter

Include your name, address and preferred reply format (either uncontracted Braille grade 1, contracted Braille grade 2, large print (please specify font size) or audio CD.

Where to send it to

Just write to Santa Claus, RNIB, PO Box 173, Peterborough, PE2 6WS by Monday 5 December 2011.

Alternatively you can email santa@rnib.org.uk by Friday 16 December 2011 and you'll get an email reply from him.

Read more at the RNIB.

Free personalised video

There's a website that'll send your friends and family free personalised online video messages from Santa (lasting around 60 seconds); incredibly cute for kids and hilarious for adult recipients!

Just follow this simple step-by-step process. To make it even more fun, upload a photo of the person you're sending it to. You'll need the digital photo handy when you do it.

• STEP 1: Tell the Santa about the recipient.
  Go to the Portable North Pole website and answer the questions, including the recipient's age, whether they've been good or bad (the latter option's only available to adults and teens), their name, gender, where they live and more.

  It's quite a detailed form, but it should take less than a minute to complete. The more detail you add, the more fun it is as they'll be mentioned at various points in the video.

• STEP 2: Add a photo.
  You don't have to do this, but it makes it more personal. It can be a JPEG, GIF or PNG file with a maximum size of 3MB. All photos uploaded will be deleted from the site's database before the launch of the following year.

• STEP 3: Send to your recipient.
  Enter your name, email address and that of the recipient, plus double check the details. You can use the back button to amend the details at any time. Once happy, if you agree to the terms of use, hit 'ok' and it'll be sent via email to your friend.

If you want to be able to go back and edit it, save the username and enter a password. Hey presto, that's it. You must be over 13 years old to use the site.

It's worth noting, the terms of use state:

"In addition to the information you enter in the PNP registration sheet, we may collect information about your browser type, location, and IP address, as well as the pages you visit.

"We may use "cookies" (small pieces of data we store for an extended period of time on your computer, mobile phone, or other device) to make PNP easier to use, to make our advertising better.

"We may institute programs with advertising partners and other websites in which they share information with us."

So ensure you clear your cache afterwards, if you're not happy with this. Here's a screengrab from one we did: