White Christmas on Broughton St.

I'm stuck in Savannah for the next two weeks while finishing up the semester at Georgia Southern. It's December 2, it's a sunny and beautiful 60 something degrees, and the trees have ripened to beautiful shades of reds and oranges. Did I already say that it's DECEMBER 2? This isn't right in my mind!!! How am I supposed to get in holiday spirit when my brain is registering that it's just now fall? Everything around me screams * F * A * L * L *. But then tonight I went to the library to do some thesis research and saw what I needed to see to spark that Christmas merriment from deep within. While I was happy to see all the familiar fake snow scenes, it was the mailbox in the window of my favorite store that tugged at my holiday heartstrings. It wasn't just any mailbox, it was an authentic Santa Claus, Indiana mail box. A little piece of home!!! Well, okay, an hour from home, but close enough.

If you don't know about Santa Claus, IN, it's a small town in southern Indiana that features the only US Post Office with name "Santa Claus." Soooo....all those letters that the good little boys and girls of the world (and the bad ones too) mail to Santa get sent to Santa Claus, IN. Seriously, if a letter is mailed to "Santa", it will go to Santa Claus, IN and Santa's Elves (volunteers from the town) will respond to it. They are up to replying to roughly 10,000 letters per Christmas season now. The town has been doing this for over a hundred years and started with the postmaster himself responding to the wayward letters. Also, the post office hand stamps the "Santa Claus, IN" post mark on all mail sent out from their branch. The post mark changes yearly and is designed by a local student (there is a competition for the honor of having the winning design). People send boxes of mail to the post office just to have the Santa Claus post mark on their outgoing Christmas cards.

If you want to send your cards to be postmarked, the actual address of the post office is:

Santa Claus Post Office

45 N. Kringle Place

Santa Claus, IN 47579