Santa Claus: A US town where it’s Christmas (almost) every day

Spencer County, Indiana, prides itself on being built around community spirit.

It’s home to St Meinrad Abbey and its Benedictine monks. Lincoln City was the boyhood home of Abraham Lincoln, who would go on the be the 16th US president. And then, of course, there’s the town of Santa Claus.

Santa Claus? Why is a small town in the midwest of America - more than 4,300 miles (6,920km) from Lapland - called Santa Claus?

Maybe we should ask its chief elf.

How Santa Claus - probably - got its name

Pat Koch (pronounced ‘Cook’) is 93 and has been heavily involved with the festive aspects of the Santa Claus community for more than 80 years. She is also a town historian - and has a couple of explanations behind her home’s yuletide origins.

“In 1856, the postmaster decided that the town needed its own post office, it was growing,” Pat told BBC Bitesize. “That led to plans to call the place Santa Fe, until it was pointed out there was already one in Indiana, so a new name on the document was called for.”

A completely different name was tried on the naming document first, before that too was scratched out.

Pat continued: “Above that first Santa Claus, they wrote Santa Clause - which isn’t correct - but that person changed our history completely. We don’t know who that person was.”

The town has no hospital and is not near a major airport, but it could be the setting for one of the many seasonal TV movies that have become a festive fixture in recent years.

Melissa Arnold of Spencer County’s visitor bureau even told us how one was once set here - but filmed elsewhere. It wasn’t the first time fiction had caused real-life confusion about the town.

She remembered: “I think it was 20 years ago, they had a commercial when GPS was new and they were looking for Rudolph’s Diner in Santa Claus, Indiana.

"So we still have a lot of people coming in, asking for Rudolph’s Diner - that doesn’t exist.”

The appeal of a traditional Christmas

What people do come to Santa Claus for is a chance to meet live reindeer, roast chestnuts over an open fire at Santa’s Candy Castle, visit the Santa Claus Museum and Village and perhaps decorate a cookie or two at the golf club. It’s also home to Holiday World, formerly Santa Claus Land - said by some to be the USA’s oldest theme park.

Melissa said: “The stories we hear about, the traditions, are from people who come year after year to get their Christmas ornament for the tree and to write their letter to Santa. There’s a special postmark from the post office that’s only available in December.

“We also see people from different countries who are in the area and want to stop in a town called Santa Claus. Just a few weekends ago, we had a couple of groups from France. They didn’t know each other, but it was interesting that they were both here at the same time.”

Selling Christmas for eight months of the year

There’s a good chance those French tourists popped to the Santa Claus Christmas Store. Managed by Heather Osborne, at the time of our conversation, she is making sure her shop displays are all they can be for the expected seasonal visitors.

There is everything on the shelves, from tree ornaments to gingerbread, a place for families to get the photos taken that will become their Christmas card, and a bakery producing festive fudge and cookies. The months between December and May - when the store is closed - is when Heather seeks out fresh stock.

She said: “Working at the store, you get people from all over and I love hearing their Christmas traditions. Every family has different traditions and it’s neat to see how other people celebrate. You can kind of steal some and make them your own, you know? But that’s my favourite part.”

Writing a letter to Santa Claus

But perhaps the tradition Santa Claus has become best known for, certainly in the USA, is the work chief elf Pat undertakes with her army of volunteers each year.

“We help Santa Claus answer letters that children write,” she explained. “You know, he’s really busy getting toys ready, so he can’t really answer all those letters.”

In 2023, Pat and her team, Santa’s Elves Incorporated, replied to almost 24,000 letters on behalf of Santa that came to the town - around 10 times its population. Some years, they answer close to 30,000.

The tradition is thought to date back to around 1914 but the most reliable research seems to point at Pat’s father, Jim Yellig. He had returned from the First World War and found Santa Claus post office overwhelmed with letters from children and the staff dealing with the regular mail as well as the usual surge in Christmas cards. So he called in some help.

The local veterans’ association, the high school, sisters at the nearby convent, and a priest all got involved with answering the boxes of letters coming in to town for Santa. Jim went on to become the Santa of Santa Claus for more than 50 years.

“I remember as a child that my father always had boxes of letters,” Pat continued. “So when I was about 12, I started answering letters and now I’m 93. So I guess I’ve been doing it for 81 years. But it is a great tradition.”

Letters come from as far away as Ukraine, Japan and China, with local exchange students who can speak different languages proving valuable additions to Pat’s team when it comes to writing the replies.

Letters aren’t Pat’s sole festive concern. In 2006, she founded the town’s Santa Claus Museum to help preserve its history and she and her husband, Bill, gave all the streets in Christmas Lake Village - Santa Claus’s gated community - yuletide-themed names. The three major roads are named Balthazar, Kaspar and Melchior - after the wise men of the Nativity.

“My favourite part is seeing the children,” she said. “To bring that joy is so important to me.

“It’s real. It’s not fake. We’re just trying to be more welcoming. We should keep the Christmas spirit all year. Our lives would be much better.”

This article was published in December 2024