The town where its Christmas all year round
In America’s midwest, nestled between the Interstate 64 highway and the Ohio River, you’ll find the quaint little town of Santa Claus, Indiana.
Houses adorned with fairy lights line Christmas-themed streets, from Reindeer Circle and Mistletoe Drive, to Candy Cane Lane and Holiday Boulevard.
A giant Santa statue sits on top of a hill, its base emblazoned with a poignant message: “Dedicated to the children of the world. In memory of an undying love”.
And every year, the town receives tens of thousands of letters from those very children, with residents – who are volunteers known as “Santa’s Elves” – dedicating their time to answering them on behalf of the North Pole.
More than 21,000 have been received this year alone; some years there are as many as 35,000.
“We spend many hours answering as many as we can possibly answer,” says Patricia Koch, founder of the Santa Claus Museum and the town’s “chief elf”.
Across the US there’s no shortage of cities and towns with interesting names, each with their own unique story.
In New Mexico, residents from a resort destination once known as Hot Springs renamed the city Truth or Consequences, after an NBC radio host challenged listeners to adopt the name of his quiz show.
In Texas, a 1912 dispute over the local church led to a town being called Cut and Shoot, after a young boy yelled such a threat as tensions flared.
And in Washington, the town of Concrete was born in the early 1900s through the merger of two others: Baker and Cement City.
The story of Santa Claus, Indiana, has its roots in 1852 when the town, which was then known as Santa Fee, applied to open a Post Office.
The request was denied because it appeared to duplicate the name of another Indiana town, known as Santa Fe, forcing residents to find another name.
Legend has it that locals picked the name Santa Claus after a gusty wind blew the church doors open during a Christmas celebration that year, and sleigh bells could be heard in the distance.
Not long after the Santa Claus Post Office was officially established in 1856, becoming the only post office known to bear that name, letters began flooding in addressed to the jolly fat man himself.
Koch says one of the town’s early postmasters took it upon himself to start writing back to children.
Her father, who was the town’s local Santa for six decades, also assisted, and when he died in 1984, she took over his legacy.
Koch now leads a team of dedicated volunteers, who sign up online and even receive letter-writing training, to help manage the load.
“I’ve been really impressed this year with how many children have said in their letters: ‘you can leave off a couple of my gifts, but think about children who don’t have what I have’,” she says.
“That gives me hope.”