Spencer County Visitors Bureau(SANTA CLAUS, Ind.) — Ask for directions to a hardware store in Santa Claus, Indiana, and you may be told to take Candy Castle Road, Mistletoe Drive, Sleigh Bell Lane, or Christmas Boulevard before you arrive at Santa’s Hardware store.
In the town of less than 3,000 residents, the spirit of Christmas does not begin on Dec. 1 nor end on Dec. 25.
Santa Claus stakes its claim as being the only post office in the world with Santa’s name.
The town’s post office receives around 400,000 pieces of mail each holiday season, a Santa Claus spokeswoman told ABC News.
Each piece of mail gets a special postmark, for free, that is designed by a local high school student each year.
The post office was incorporated in 1856, so locals believe the town was named Santa Claus a few years prior.
The legend goes that locals were trying to come up with a town name when children heard sleigh bells outside and proclaimed, “Santa Claus,” thereby naming the town.
Pat Koch, an 85-year-old who has spent nearly her whole life in Santa Claus, is known as the town’s “Chief Elf.”
Koch oversees an annual operation of more than 100 volunteers who send hand-written replies to the more than 20,000 letters that are sent to Santa Claus on average each holiday season.
“I think the miracle of all of it is that children still believe in the time of such access to information,” said Koch, who said letters come from around the world, and from adults too. “We know when that child gets the letter and opens it, that that will be a wonderful part of Christmas.”
Koch explained that volunteers use four templates to reply to the letters.
“One says, ‘Sometimes Santa can’t send you everything you want,’” Koch said. “That’s for the child that sends in a four-page letter.”
For the residents of Santa Claus, the town’s namesake is a very real entity whom they see every day in local stores like Holiday Foods, Santa’s Car Care, Kringle Place, Evergreen Boutique and Frosty’s Fun Center. There are also statues of Santa Claus all over town.
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