Santa’s Elves Alive, Well and Working Hard in Indiana

Nonbelievers, beware: That whole Santa-Claus-is-a-myth theory doesn’t fly in this town where elves have answered Christmas letters for nearly a century.

Dozens of town scribes, from the veterans of the American Legion to the women of the garden club, pen replies in red ink to believers young and old. Bilingual monks and nuns from local monasteries answer letters from foreign lands.

The letter writers, who see themselves as Santa’s elves, follow two rules: “We never promise anything to kids, and we keep the spiritual part of Christmas in it,” says the head elf, Patricia Koch.

Some of the 10,000 annual letters addressed to the town’s namesake are downright funny.

“I just want to tell you that my chimney is full of glass,” writes young Victoria. “I will leave the keys out for you to come in the door.”

Others require a tissue.

“My mom got fired from her job in November,” writes Alfred, 13. “We are using an electric heater to heat up the apt. Dear Santa, I was hoping that you will send us something for we will have a Merry Christmas.”

The holiday spirit is taken seriously in this rural southern Indiana community of 2,000 people. They rent movies at Ho Ho Ho Video, offer prayers at St. Nicholas Catholic Church, buy groceries at Holiday Foods and golf at Christmas Lake Village.

“I think someone who doesn’t like Christmas would go live in another town,” says Paul Werne, spokeswoman for Holiday World Theme Park in Santa Claus.

The town’s post office offers a special red decorative postmark--available upon request. An estimated 100,000 cards from across the United States come through the post office each December just to get it, postmaster Sandra Collignon says.

Without the special candy cane-conjuring name, Santa Claus “would be like the little town down the road,” Collignon says.

Santa Claus originally was a settlement named Santa Fe (pronounced Fee). Residents couldn’t open a post office in the mid-1800s until the town’s name was changed, because there was already a Santa Fe, in northern Indiana.

Legend has it there was much dissension over what to call it until the Christmas spirit came over the townspeople at a December party.

It’s unclear when kids started addressing letters to Santa Claus, Ind., in addition to the North Pole. But it’s believed postmaster Jim Martin started sending replies to children’s letters in 1914. A few years later, the town was highlighted in Ripley’s Believe or Not, and letters started arriving by the bundle.

Martin later teamed with Koch’s father, Jim Yellig, who was Santa Claus at the Holiday World Theme Park and is still remembered around town as the “real Santa Claus.”

Like the town, Yellig has his own story. He is said to have played Santa Claus for the first time for underprivileged children in Brooklyn during World War I.

“He made a vow, ‘If you get me through this war, I’ll be Santa Claus forever,’ ” Werne says.

The children’s letters have always told a lot about their lives, says Bette Rice, a member of the town’s garden club.

Some letters tell Santa where he can buy an endless list of toys, and include the price. Others “just want food,” Rice says.

Even as a child, the 69-year-old Koch helped her father answer the letters. He took the letter-writing seriously, and his notes with messages like “needs to quit sucking thumb” can still be found on letters mailed into Santa Claus decades ago.

Children used to ask for Shirley Temple dolls, but today they’re more likely to request high-tech gadgets and games.

The tone of the letters has changed as well. In recent years, kids seem more desperate, sometimes telling Santa Claus their parents are taking drugs or abusing them, Koch says.

“That’s new and that’s sad,” says Koch, who will contact a charity in the child’s hometown if a child is clearly in need.

“Our goal is to answer letters, and that’s what we’re really doing,” Koch says. “We can’t do something for everybody. We understand that.”

Like many of the townspeople, Koch believes that receiving a letter from Santa can make a difference in a child’s life. She helped set up a nonprofit corporation in 1974 to pay for postage that costs thousands each year.

Each December, Koch drops off letters, picks up fresh bundles and recruits new elves. This year, she talked some residents from a nursing home into helping.

“People call to help, and it gets done,” Koch said. “It always gets done.”

Koch jokes about the time a television reporter had the “audacity” to ask her if she felt right perpetuating the myth of Santa Claus.

Her answer: “What myth?”

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