In the village of North Pole, Alaska, lives a man named Santa Claus.
Or so the story goes.
Fun fact–the town of North Pole is actually South of Fairbanks, where Heidi lives. So she can claim with utmost authority “I live North of North Pole.” Of course, North of the North Pole is a different matter.
As I’ve mentioned before, the town hosts a very large Christmas store, where you can purchase Alaska paraphenalia, crêches, ornaments, Christmas trees . . .
. . . and even visit with the fenced-in reindeer out back. Hello Prancer. Or is it Dancer? Sorry. . . you all look the same to me.
While we were there in September, we decided to get an ornament. There were so many choices that it was a difficult task.
The felt sweater or the little wooden sled? The snowflake or the moose?
Thankfully, little James had a clear opinion.
Posted on some of the walls and columns of the store . . . letters to Santa!
I guess they come somewhere after all. I heard that parents can pay “Santa” to actually answer these letters. I wonder what Santa’s going rate is these days. Anyway, I wanted to put up a couple of these letters as we enter the Christmas season for your enjoyment and amusement.
Can I please
have three Junie B. Jones. And some Junie B. books. One stupid smelly bus, the christmas one, and a monster under her bed plus some beads. Thanks. Love,
Abagaile.
Pleas
Pleas
Pleas
Pleas
Pleas
Get Me
a Castle
Pleas
Dan
Marinoe
Jersy
Dear Santa, am I beaing good for Christmas? I hope I am. Do you have little Elves? How are you doing? How old are you? Here’s a Chistmas list
E-Kare
Fisher Price sweet streets
play CD
Lizzemicd
a pitcher of you and Mrs. Clas and elves
from Erin kinney
Dear, Santa
I have been a little naghty This year I am sorry. If I end up getting any thing this year I would love to have a puppy, I would help out more at the house. Santa I would not ask for anything els for the rest of the year.
Love,
Mackenzie
It will be a while before this little guy writes his first letter to the Big Fat Bearded Man.
Lookin’ good in that hat there, James.
Do I have to keep wearing this?
So–did you guys ever write letters to Santa? And did you believe in him? And do your kids write letters to Santa? And how much is Santa charging these days for a response?
I am so bummed that our trip to Alaska didn’t include a stop at this town….or a single reindeer sighting.
ha! so cute 🙂
Great photos–and I love these letters! To be fair, a good chunk of letters to Santa come to Santa Claus, Indiana, too!
Oh, right! I’d forgotten all about Santa Claus, IN!
There’s a Santa Claus, Indiana?!?!?!
The letters are so cute. What a fun town to visit (or live in) at holiday time
Yes, yes, not yet, and about a dozen cookies. 🙂
I remember writing one particular letter to Santa which took me forever to finish because in it I was tracing a golden retriever from an L.L. Bean magazine (of course a puppy was my wish that year and many years before & after). My mom was a mail carrier, so I knew the woman at the post office who answered the “Santa mail” for that district. Of course, I didn’t know that until years later… I was a firm believer in Santa. Mom instilled it in me… She told me what her mother had told her: “Whenever you stop believing in Santa, he’ll no longer deliver presents to your house.” I still believe. 😉
My mom also had the rule that once you stop believing in Santa he stopped coming. I’m in college and the youngest in our family is 13 and Santa still comes to our house 🙂
When I was in second grade my class wrote letters to Santa that were answered by his “elves”. When I got into sixth grade I discovered that the elves were really the sixth graders and thus I found out that Santa was not who I thought he was 😉
Don’t forget about North Pole, NY. I’ll bet a bunch go there too! 🙂
Adorble images 😀
One stupid smelly bus and a monster under her bed, is classic!! That had me laughing 😉 I also liked that Mackenzie would help out more, IF she gets a puppy…nothing like a lil’ bribery to Santa eh? Lol!
Believing in Santa, as it morphed with age, gave me the understanding of the idea of omnipresence. How else could all those presents get delivered to all those kids all over the world?! And from there, the beginning of an understanding of God who is omnipresent…. =).
Whoa–Santa informed your theological understanding of God? That’s pretty crazy cool, Momtaz.
We see a lot of Santa mail flying across our screens during November & December. I know by heart now that all Santa mail goes to zip code 99705-9900 (although the mail piece almost never has this info on it) but it wasn’t until after reading this that I finally looked up that zip code to see where it is located. As I thought and you and Google confirmed, North Pole, AK! 🙂
Am I the only person on Earth who finds it irksome that parents lie to their children about Santa? If we lie to our children about Santa, how can they ever trust us about more important things we teach them, like Jesus? Blows my mind how widely accepted this is. I’m so thankful my Mom & Dad never fed us this baloney and never once lied to us, that I know of. I knew I could trust them, no matter what, and my world was never rocked by discovering a truth that they had covered up.
Loved the adorable pictures of baby James with you guys! That shop looks like a lot of fun, and the children’s letters are HILARIOUS!!
I’m semi-regretting the negative aspect of my last comment since it wasn’t really called for in response to this heartwarming, cheerful, beautiful post. I guess the Santa aspect just reminded me of my pet-peeve. And girl, it is a huge one. I don’t know why it bugs me so much but I’m almost illogical about how angry it makes me. LOL! I hope you have a pet peeve that isn’t PC to talk about so you won’t find it too hard to forgive me for my outburst.
Hey, don’t worry about it! That’s totally Adam’s philosophy, so we don’t plan on telling our kids that Santa exists. I also grew up not believing in Santa, though I still wrote him letters–or at least wish-lists (even while knowing it was my parents that would see it). I don’t think I could lie to a kid about it either, though I respect those who do let their kids live in ‘fairy land’ for a while (nudge nudge to my dear Carrie Paz).
Glad I didn’t rock your boat too much! 🙂 I have no problem with Santa being a holiday icon, and no problem with parents who joke with their children and pretend he’s coming but hope that they know he’s not truly real. If I had kids, I’d probably let them write letters to Santa and leave cookies out for them too, as long as they understood it was just for fun. 🙂
Those letters to santa are just crazy adorable. I love the stream of consciousness of them 😛
baby james is increasingly adorable! Especially in that hat.