Santa Claus, Ind., population 2,500, was founded in 1856 and eventually came to boast the only Santa Claus post office in the U.S., where thousands of letters from children and parents pour in every year. This December, Indiana University Press will publish Letters to Santa Claus, a collection of 250 letters to Santa that span more than eight decades and were lovingly handpicked by Pat Koch and Emily Weisner Thompson.
Thompson is the director of the Santa Claus Museum & Village, which Koch, whose husband owned the property, opened in 2006. “The site is open seasonally, from May to December,” Thompson says. “It includes the museum, the historic Santa Claus statue, the original Santa Claus post office, and the 1880 Santa Claus church.” It also has an archive of about 2,000 letters, so Thompson had quite a job when she began selecting the ones to include in Letters to Santa Claus. She had been thinking about a book for some time, but had no idea how to begin such a project. In a serendipitous bit of timing, IUP contacted her last year about a publishing arrangement. The state will celebrate its bicentennial in 2016, and as one way to commemorate that, the press decided to recognize the museum as the area’s most famous landmark.
Because of the busy Christmas selling season, Thompson wasn’t able to start work on Letters to Santa Claus until this January. “I had to wrap it up by the end of February,” says Thompson, “so I worked a lot of long days and weekends. But this project was so important that it was absolutely worth it.” Volunteers at the museum are called Elves, and over the years they’ve saved their favorite letters, which are then designated for the archives. Thompson went through the letters chronologically when she sat down to pull the selection for the book; they are organized by decade and category, for example, funny, sad, or poignant. As for getting permission to use the letters in the book, all identifying personal information was removed so that IUP could publish them freely.
All the letters received at the Santa Claus post office are answered by one of the Elves each December. The Elves send best wishes and words of encouragement to the young letter writers. “What I love about the letters is that they are a window into the past,” Thompson says. “The hopes and dreams of generations are captured, and they also offer a glimpse into what is going on in our society today. Some children ask for dolls or game systems, but others mention gifts for victims of hurricanes or tornadoes. It really was difficult to pick the best of the best, but it was a great problem to have.”
Thompson is signing Letters to Santa Claus today in the English Publishers Services booth (1069), 10–11 a.m.
