Nurses at Methodist Hospital | Westover Hills in San Antonio, Texas, are helping newborn and neonatal intensive care unit babies write their first letters to Santa during the holiday season, giving families a record of the milestone and a keepsake from the child’s earliest days.
Hospital staff organize the letter-writing activity each year in December inside the labor and delivery and NICU units, where babies often spend their first days or weeks under close medical care.
Nurses write the letters on behalf of the infants, using the baby’s name and age and noting details such as favorite colors, early personality traits, or wishes expressed by the parents for the child’s future.
Parents provide information about their baby and may suggest items or themes for the letter, including small toys, clothing, or books they hope to give or receive for their child.
Staff members place the completed letters in decorated envelopes and address them to Santa, often adding the year and the hospital name so families can preserve the document as a dated memento.
Some units display copies of the letters on bulletin boards or near the nurses’ station so families and staff can see the names of participating babies during the holiday period.
The hospital’s child life and nursing teams coordinate the timing of the activity to avoid interruptions to medical routines such as feeding schedules, medication administration, and physician rounds.
Nurses report that families with children who were former NICU patients sometimes return in later years to share how their children have progressed since their first letter to Santa.
Hospital administrators note that these contacts can help maintain long-term relationships between the institution and families who received neonatal or maternity services.
The Santa letter practice at Methodist Hospital | Westover Hills continues as an annual tradition and remains available to families with newborns and NICU patients who are present in the hospital during the holiday period.