1. You tell Santa three things
Your child’s first name, their age range, and one thing Santa should say well done for: being kind, being brave, helping at home and so on. If the name is often read wrongly, there is a box to spell it the way it sounds.
2. You choose how Santa gets in touch
A phone call ($3.79). Give a New Zealand mobile or landline number. Santa rings it as soon as the message is ready, or at a day and time you book, between 8am and 8pm New Zealand time.
An email ($1.87). The message arrives in your inbox as an MP3, with a link to a screen that looks like Santa is calling.
3. You pay
Payment is handled by Stripe: card, Apple Pay or Google Pay, in New Zealand dollars. One payment, no subscription. Your child’s name is never sent to Stripe.
4. Santa’s message is made
The message is put together for your child from Santa’s script: their name, words chosen for their age, and the praise you picked. It is spoken in a computer-made Santa voice and takes about a minute to make. The page you land on after paying shows you how it is going.
5. The phone rings, or the email lands
For a phone call, answer it and hand it over. Santa talks, then asks what they would like for Christmas and waits for the answer before carrying on. The whole call takes about a minute. If nobody picks up, he tries again up to 3 times in all, about 10 minutes apart, and after that the message is emailed instead.
For an email, open the link on your phone and let your child tap the green button.
6. You keep it
Either way you get Santa’s message by email as an MP3. If you ticked “record the call”, you also get the recording of the whole call, your child’s answer included. The link to the calling screen works for 90 days, and the MP3 is yours for good.
What it is not
It is not a live conversation. Santa pauses for an answer, but he cannot reply to what your child says. That is on purpose: you know exactly what Santa will say, every time. The call is only recorded if you ask for it.
More detail is in the questions.