SANTA CLAUS, Ind.—Many things can be said about this town along the Indiana-Kentucky border, but there is one unequivocal truth: Santa exists here, even in the dead of summer.

The jolly fat man is everywhere. The town hotel is Santa’s Lodge, with St. Nick’s Restaurant inside, where Buffalo wings are called “Reindeer Paws.” Down the street on Holiday Boulevard is Silent Night Cafe, a short walk from Lake Rudolph Campground and Frosty Fun Center, which is around the corner from St. Nicholas Catholic Church. The post office, at 45 N. Kringle Place, receives thousands of children’s letters addressed to Santa Claus each Christmas.

Here in the lush, rolling green hills of southern Indiana, 3,585 miles from the geographic North Pole, a town’s economic engine is dependent on tourists who seek a Christmas experience year-round. The facade may have a whiff of gimmickry and/or clever marketing, but there are 2,200 people who call Santa Claus home year-round.

So, what is it like to live in a town where “Jingle Bells” plays in July? We took a trip down there to find out.

“It’s really neat, because you get away with it,” said Sylvia Seger, surrounded by an astonishing Christmas display of more than 500 Santa-related paraphernalia in her living room. “You wouldn’t get away with this anyplace else.”

By outward appearances, there is perhaps no happier, more joyful place than the Seger residence. In the living room, lights adorn trees, Santas come in many forms two and three-dimensional and everything has a red-and-green warmness to it. It risks tackiness, but it’s all charm.

Another way of looking at this: They don’t have to take any Christmas ornaments down, not even after Jan. 1.

“When I bring people into the room, I always tell them to think of this room as a museum,” said Seger, a retired first-grade teacher. “Because if you think of this as a living room, it is a little overwhelming.”

The Segers live in Christmas Lake Village. Their house is on the corner of Evergreen Drive and Melchior Drive (Melchior being one of the three wise men). The Village is a gated community built in 1969, spreading over 2,500 acres with three artificial lakes: Christmas Lake, Lake Noel and Lake Holly. During December, the gates open up for “The Festival of Lights,” an electric meter- spinning display of 800 decorated homes that lights up the southern Indiana sky.

And there are few families that also exhibit the Christmas spirit as colorfully as the Segers. This raises the question: Does it ever get old?

“Since I have Christmas all year long, perhaps Christmas isn’t quite as special on just that single day as it might be for other people,” Sylvia said. “But I like it that way. It’s not that it is worse or boring. I just get to enjoy it more.”

At the post office where mail addressed to 47579 is delivered, the madness begins at Thanksgiving.

This may be true of any postal facility in America, but in Santa Claus, Ind., upward of 10,000 letters addressed to Jolly St. Nick arrive at Marian Balbach’s office.

Balbach, the town’s postmaster, said she receives letters from as far away as Japan and Sweden.

Some of them come from really needy families,” she said. “Some of them are really heart-wrenching, because they are asking for a job for Mommy or a job for Daddy.”

Her job then, is to make sure all the mail addressed to Santa gets answered. The letters are handed off to a group of volunteers called “Santa’s Elves” at the Santa Claus Museum, where one of four form letters is used.

One letter is intended for children who ask for lots of presents (“My elves are all scurrying around helping me find special gifts for all our friends … we will try to bring some of the presents you are wishing for.”) Another letter is aimed for adults (“Remember to share your gifts with others”). All return letters include a personalized handwritten P.S. note. Postage is covered by donations.

“The letters they send are general, and (don’t) promise anything,” Balbach said. “But it lets them know that Santa is thinking about them, and that they’ll see him at Christmas.”

By KEVIN PANG and MICHAEL PASTERNAK
Chicago Tribune