HO HO HOT LINE: If you had...

HO HO HOT LINE: If you had any doubt that Villa Park was “upscale,” maybe you haven’t heard about its latest Santa Claus idea. Villa Park Pharmacy and Fountain is offering youngsters from the city’s three elementary schools free use of its fax machine to send letters to Santa Claus. Owner Jim Brodsky has hooked up with a service that guarantees a 48-hour North Pole response. Brodsky suggests warmly: “It’s so much like Villa Park--homey but high-tech.”

MAKING FRIENDS: The November numbers are in for the new Foothill toll road near Lake Forest: 6,000 passengers a day. Commuters are reporting a savings of 10 to 20 minutes per trip by using the toll road. . . . Problems are minor so far: Some people don’t have the right change of 50 cents, and others are missing the change basket. But, says spokesman William Woollett Jr., “not bad for our first time.”

LIFE AFTER “LIFE”: The Christmas season brings back so many TV repeats of “It’s a Wonderful Life,” that George Bailey--Jimmy Stewart’s most famous role--is almost as popular to some as St. Nick. So what happened to the Baileys’ four children? . . . One is Carol Coombs Mueller--the piano-playing daughter--who taught for 14 years at the Calvary Christian School in Santa Ana, until she retired in 1988. She was reunited recently with the other three Bailey siblings after a friend saw on a TV talk show that they were looking for her.

“PHANTOM” STRIKES: It may not be the same company that broke records in Los Angeles, but the “Phantom of the Opera” coming to the Orange County Performing Arts Center July 24 has arts patrons here excited. Tickets are selling now. And the Westin South Coast Plaza, with the arts center in its back yard, is cashing in with a Christmas gift promotion: Stay at the hotel on a Friday or Saturday night in August and you’ll get two orchestra or first-tier seats. It’s $235 per couple, with continental breakfast.