Santa's Elves Alive, Well and Working Hard in Indiana
SANTA CLAUS, Ind. — Nonbelievers, beware: That whole Santa-Claus-is-a-myth theory doesn't fly in this town where elves have answered Christmas letters for nearly a century.
Dozens of town scribes, from the veterans of the American Legion to the women of the garden club, pen replies in red ink to believers young and old. Bilingual monks and nuns from local monasteries answer letters from foreign lands.
The letter writers, who see themselves as Santa's elves, follow two rules: "We never promise anything to kids, and we keep the spiritual part of Christmas in it," says the head elf, Patricia Koch.
Some of the 10,000 annual letters addressed to the town's namesake are downright funny.
"I just want to tell you that my chimney is full of glass," writes young Victoria. "I will leave the keys out for you to come in the door."
Others require a tissue.
"My mom got fired from her job in November," writes Alfred, 13. "We are using an electric heater to heat up the apt. Dear Santa, I was hoping that you will send us something for we will have a Merry Christmas."
The holiday spirit is taken seriously in this rural southern Indiana community of 2,000 people. They rent movies at Ho Ho Ho Video, offer prayers at St. Nicholas Catholic Church, buy groceries at Holiday Foods and golf at Christmas Lake Village.
"I think someone who doesn't like Christmas would go live in another town," says Paul Werne, spokeswoman for Holiday World Theme Park in Santa Claus.
The town's post office offers a special red decorative postmark--available upon request. An estimated 100,000 cards from across the United States come through the post office each December just to get it, postmaster Sandra Collignon says.
Without the special candy cane-conjuring name, Santa Claus "would be like the little town down the road," Collignon says.
Santa Claus originally was a settlement named Santa Fe (pronounced Fee). Residents couldn't open a post office in the mid-1800s until the town's name was changed, because there was already a Santa Fe, in northern Indiana.
Legend has it there was much dissension over what to call it until the Christmas spirit came over the townspeople at a December party.
It's unclear when kids started addressing letters to Santa Claus, Ind., in addition to the North Pole. But it's believed postmaster Jim Martin started sending replies to children's letters in 1914. A few years later, the town was highlighted in Ripley's Believe or Not, and letters started arriving by the bundle.
