A Cipher Letter To Santa

A Cipher Letter To Santa

So Santa has been busy this year and has been getting through the letters that kids have sent him. But he opens up one, and he can’t make any sense of it. So he calls over his cipher elf to see if he can help. “It is all just a bunch of 1’s and 0’s, and it doesn’t fit anything I know”, says Santa. So the cipher elf takes a look:

11101101111111011100011011110100110011110111010001111100001011111 
100111010010000010110101000001101110000100001111001110011101001100 
0101100010110001101010111111101110111010011110100111010001101110000 
010111111001110100100101101000100100111001001000111101001110100 
1110111111110101111000110001011011101000010111111001110100100000101 
1010100000110111000001001000101111111010011000101111111000011000101 
10111010001000011111100111010010010101001111001101101000111001100 
1101101010001101000101101100101110111011110

For once the cipher elf is puzzled, and only when he reveals a code on the back of the letter does he realise what the message is. Here is the code on the back:

27	00
e	16	101
a	13	1111
h	7	0101
n	6	0100
s	7	0110
t	9	1100
d	6	11101
i	4	10001
m	4	10010
o	5	11100. 
v	4	10011
y	4	11010
,	2	011101
.	2	011110
b	2	100000
g	2	100001
l	2	110110
r	3	110111
u	1	011100
I	1	0111110
c	1	0111111

The cipher elf whispers into Santa’s ear, and Santa smiles. “Ah”, says Santa, “before you go, can you decipher this one too?”.

['w', 'h', 'a', 't', ' ', 'i', ' ', 'w', 'a', 'n', 259, 'f', 'o', 'r',
 ' ', 'c', 'h', 'r', 'i', 's', 't', 'm', 'a', 's', 260, 279, 'a', ' ',
 'h', 268, 's', 'e', ',', 283, 285, 'e', ' ', 'b', 'o', 'o', 'k', 281, 
'n', 'd', ' ', 282, 'c', 'e', 'l', 'l', ' ', 'p', 284, 'n', 'e', '.', 
260, 'f', ' ', 'y', 'o', 'u', 270, 264, 'n', 'o', 259, 'g', 'e', 259, 
't', 'h', 291, 284, 'r', 286, ' ', 'o', 'n', ' ', 326, 291, 's', 'l', 
'e', 'i', 'g', 'h', 260, 262, 'i', 304, ' ', 'u', 298, 'e', 330, 't', 
264, 'd']

All the cipher elf can find is:

Adding: [256]	wh
Adding: [257]	ha
Adding: [258]	at
Adding: [259]	t 
Adding: [260]	 i
Adding: [261]	i 
Adding: [262]	 w
Adding: [263]	wa
Adding: [264]	an
Adding: [265]	nt
Adding: [266]	t f
Adding: [267]	fo
Adding: [268]	or
Adding: [269]	r 
Adding: [270]	 c
Adding: [271]	ch
Adding: [272]	hr
Adding: [273]	ri
Adding: [274]	is
Adding: [275]	st
Adding: [276]	tm
Adding: [277]	ma
Adding: [278]	as
Adding: [279]	s 
Adding: [280]	 is
Adding: [281]	s a
Adding: [282]	a 
Adding: [283]	 h
Adding: [284]	ho
Adding: [285]	ors
Adding: [286]	se
Adding: [287]	e,
Adding: [288]	, 
Adding: [289]	 ho
Adding: [290]	orse
Adding: [291]	e 
Adding: [292]	 b
Adding: [293]	bo
Adding: [294]	oo
Adding: [295]	ok
Adding: [296]	ks
Adding: [297]	s an
Adding: [298]	nd
Adding: [299]	d 
Adding: [300]	 a
Adding: [301]	a c
Adding: [302]	ce
Adding: [303]	el
Adding: [304]	ll
Adding: [305]	l 
Adding: [306]	 p
Adding: [307]	ph
Adding: [308]	hon
Adding: [309]	ne
Adding: [310]	e.
Adding: [311]	. 
Adding: [312]	 if
Adding: [313]	f 
Adding: [314]	 y
Adding: [315]	yo
Adding: [316]	ou
Adding: [317]	u 
Adding: [318]	 ca
Adding: [319]	ann
Adding: [320]	no
Adding: [321]	ot
Adding: [322]	t g
Adding: [323]	ge
Adding: [324]	et
Adding: [325]	t t
Adding: [326]	th
Adding: [327]	he
Adding: [328]	e h
Adding: [329]	hor
Adding: [330]	rs
Adding: [331]	se 
Adding: [332]	 o
Adding: [333]	on
Adding: [334]	n 
Adding: [335]	 t
Adding: [336]	the
Adding: [337]	e s
Adding: [338]	sl
Adding: [339]	le
Adding: [340]	ei
Adding: [341]	ig
Adding: [342]	gh
Adding: [343]	h 
Adding: [344]	 i 
Adding: [345]	 wi
Adding: [346]	il
Adding: [347]	ll 
Adding: [348]	 u
Adding: [349]	un
Adding: [350]	nde
Adding: [351]	er
Adding: [352]	rst
Adding: [353]	ta
Adding: [354]	and

Hope you have had a nice break.