We visited Santa Claus, Indiana with our friends (Marsha & Jason P and their 3 girls). Santa Claus, IN is known for three things - Holiday World theme park (similar to Six Flags/Hurricane Harbor put together), the name of the town and for its Christmas postmark. Almost everything in town is named after the town, like "Holiday Foods" (grocery store), "Santa Claus Chiropractic", "St. Nicholas Catholic Church", "Kringle Place" (shopping center), "Lake Rudolph Campground & RV Resort", etc. The main business in town is tourism - all because of the name of the town. To read how the town got its name, click here.
This weekend is their big Christmas Festival - and for a town of a little over 2,000 people - it's quite the festival! Our day started with the Christmas parade. Almost every float was either Christmas-themed or Abraham Lincoln-themed. Lincoln State Park is about 4 miles down the road from Santa Claus. (We camped there this fall.) Despite the freezing wind, it was a very enjoyable parade - especially for the kids! Each of the firetrucks and shuttle buses are named after the reindeer - we saw Rudolph & Dasher & Donder!
After the parade, we visited the Santa Claus Post Office to mail our Christmas cards. Each year, they have a contest to design the Santa postmark. They are the only post office in the US with a Santa Claus postmark at Christmas time.
We also visited the Santa Claus museum (mostly history of the town & Holiday World). All letters that are written to Santa & mailed to Santa Claus, Indiana are answered by "Santa's Helpers" at the museum. They have collected funny & interesting letters that have been sent to Santa since the 30s.
Next, we went to a Christmas puppet show at the Santa Claus United Methodist Church. It was performed by their youth group & was very funny and entertaining.
Then, we visited Santa's Candy Castle. Our favorite part of this visit was the monster campfire going out back! We discovered that we share a love of campfires & camping with Jason & Marsha. I forsee another family trip together in the future - camping! The castle was very commercialized, but the kids did get to see Santa inside. There was also a really neat St. Nicholas carved into a tree stump out back.
We cut the trip short, due to a lack of things to do (that are fun for kids!) until dark. We were planning on going to the "Festival of Lights" through the 12 themed neighborhoods in Christmas Lake Village (about 850 homes). With tired kids & parents, we headed home & enjoyed a quiet dinner and fun at our friends' house instead. We will try to see the Festival of Lights another year! Maybe this will become an annual tradition!
6 comments:
Looks like your family had a lot of fun at our festival! Thanks for blogging about it! I put a link to your blog on our blog at the Spencer County Visitors Bureau in Santa Claus. www.LegendaryPlaces.org
I want to go there!
That looks so fun...I'm wondering how far it is from us so I can go visit!
How neat!!
Just saw the first comment ... you're famous! :)
My mom and I went to Santa Claus, IN this past weekend too! We had a blast. We loved the Santa Claus Museum and the parade. We went to the Festival of Lights and it took us 2 hours and 45 minutes to get through it, so it was probably best you skipped it if you were tired. :) Thanks for your fun blog and photos. The Christmas Festival was my favorite 2008 memory by far!
Post a Comment