Wallace Street Winter Wonderland: Grangemouth family help pass on hundreds of children's dream lists to Santa

Nicole Ritchie, 31, and her children Freya, 11, and Jorja, 3, can now class themselves as elves after helping deliver hundreds of letters to Father Christmas giving him the lowdown on what children in the area will be hoping to find under the Christmas tree on the morning of December 25.

Freya and Jorja’s grandparents William and Senga Morris are already old hands at spreading Christmas cheer through their eye catching Wallace Street Winter Wonderland in Grangemouth, which has raised hundreds of pounds for charities – including Alzheimer’s Scotland, Strathcarron Hospice and CHAS – over the last few years.

This year’s charity is the My Name'5 Doddie Foundation, named in memory of Scottish rugby legend Doddie Weir, which aims to funding research to find effective

treatments to battle motor neuron disease.

Santa’s postbox was introduced to the Winter Wonderland a couple of years ago and is proving popular again this year, with children from outside the Grangemouth area turning up to post their messages to the North Pole’s most famous resident.

The postbox, which was put in place on December 1, will be taken away later tonight to give Santa time to get his toy orders ready.

Nicole is now just as much an honorary elf as Will Ferrell due to her postal prowess helping pass on letters to Father Christmas and then turning into Santa’s secretary and post person, passing on his personal reply messages to scores of children, taking the trouble to hand deliver them to addresses throughout the area.

She said: “This little elf has been inundated this year – so far I have received around 200 letters from Grangemouth, Carronshore, Bo’ness, Limerigg, Avonbridge and more.

"Seeing all the private messages I have received telling me how excited the children are to receive a reply from Santa and finding out our final total raised for the charity makes all the hard work worthwhile.”