SANTA CLAUS, Ga. — Yes, there really is a Santa Claus ... city.
But you have to really, really believe. And look very, very closely. Because Santa Claus, Georgia, is easy to miss.
Sue Grisham’s friends from Tennessee came to visit and went 20 miles too far down U.S. 1. They drove past the city’s three blocks along the highway, not noticing the little welcome sign with a plastic Santa that not so much beckons but whispers.
Residents don’t want to disappoint you if you travel all that way to see the tiny community hidden between Macon and Savannah and not too close to the interstate. So they do what they can.
The city is too small to have a traffic light, but there are candy cane stripes on street sign poles year round. All but one of its nine or so streets have Christmas-themed names: Reindeer Street, Rudolph Way, Sleigh Street. At Reindeer Trail in a city park, a sign bans alcohol and four wheelers, then says, “Remember Santa is watching you.”
The little community center, which has a towering artificial Christmas tree inside it all year round, hosts birthday parties, bridal showers and the like. One rule: The tree stays, no matter what.
In early December, Grisham, the city’s secretary, sat at her desk in city hall, located at 25 December Drive. There was a Christmas tree behind her and a big Santa figure beside it. The phone rang.
“Thank you for calling Santa Claus. This is Sue,” Grisham said.
She spent a chunk of that morning as she usually does in the weeks before Christmas: hand stamping letters with the city logo. It’s a picture of the jolly man partially encircled by the city name and the word “Believe.”
It isn’t an official postmark. Santa Claus, Ga. — unlike Santa Claus, Ind. — doesn’t have its own post office. But people can mail a box of stamped and addressed letters or drop them off at city hall. Grisham inks on the city seal and drops them off about two and a half miles away at the nearest post office in Lyons, Ga.
She typically shepherds more than 4,000 of them around the holidays, meant for peoples’ family and friends around the world. There is no charge — just like there isn’t for snacks and drinks at the tree lighting festival in late November, or on Christmas Eve, when residents place paper bags with sand and candles along every street, lighting the luminaries at sundown.
The reticence to turn the tiny city into a true money-making tourist stop conflicts with what its founder had in mind.
In 1941, Calvin Greene, hoping to entice more travelers to his pecan stand, convinced Georgia legislators to create the unusually named city where he had his grove. The community initially had about 10 residents, which soon dropped to just Greene and his family, according to a local newspaper report a few years later. It wasn’t until the early 1960s that a developer, Bill Salem, laid out streets and began building, financing and selling modest brick homes there.
Santa Claus does run a small gift shop that sells T-shirts, coffee mugs and other items with the city’s name. But someone at city hall has to open it up for you.
A smattering of visitors
As of last year, Santa Claus had 204 residents, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. It’s so small that residents say some people in Vidalia don’t know that it exists, though the sweet onion capital is less than a 10-minute drive away.
And yet some visitors keep finding Santa Claus.
They come from Atlanta and all over Georgia. They arrive with out-of-state plates. Some in the last month came from England, Germany and Colombia. Many are heading somewhere else, but have heard of the community and veer out of their way hoping to find...something.
Sharon Cowart and her husband, who live more than three hours away in LaGrange, set up a rendezvous in Santa Claus with their son, a student at Georgia Southern, and their daughter who lives in Midtown Atlanta. They booked a hotel room in Vidalia, because Santa Claus doesn’t have a hotel, just a Minit Mart and a Dollar General.
The Cowarts smiled a lot during their visit, though there wasn’t much to see beyond the street signs, the gift shop, a garden and a quaint chapel.
“We love small towns,” the mom said.
There is no confusing Santa Claus, Ga. for the North Pole. Visitors did see fields covered in white on the drive down U.S. 1 this month, but it was cotton. Mosquitoes were still biting and temperatures hit the upper 70s. A contractor retrofitting some street sign poles with PVC pipe worried that the plastic might break down in the summer heat.
Of course, some locals and others who visit say Santa Claus isn’t about the climate or a season, but a way of thinking and sharing.
Challenges living up to a name
Woodrow “Woody” Smith plays Santa Claus in Santa Claus, with gigs there twice a year. An EMT, he lives 25 miles away near Soperton, but didn’t realize the city existed until a few years ago.
Smith keeps a tiny jingle bell in his pocket all year round. It gives a faint tinkle as he walks, at times annoying his kids and wife. Occasionally, he’ll put on Christmas music in the ambulance in the middle of the summer. His co-workers don’t always sing along.
It’s tough doing Santa 365 days a year. Imagine what it’s like for an entire little city.
The city float used to participate in a regional Christmas parade but stopped going after running out of volunteers. “I guess people are too busy now,” said Smith.
Kathy Joyner, whose family moved here in 1963, said she decorates her home for visitors more than she would if she lived elsewhere. “This is Santa Claus. This is what people expect.”
Years back, nearly everyone in Santa Claus put up holiday lights. There was even a contest, with a top prize of about $250, recalled a local.
But many residents are elderly, and tired. Earlier this month, fewer than half the homes had holiday lights or big lawn decorations.
Even city manager Eddie Wright, who turns 80 a few days after Christmas, and his wife, Elaine, didn’t bother for the first time in years. They used to put out 20,000 lights, inviting the public to motor up their driveway loop and through their carport for handouts of peppermint candy canes.
“We’ve missed it, but it has freed up our time a lot,” said Wright, a retired onion farmer.
Officials in the community, where the motto is “The city that loves children,” also wrestled recently with what to do about kids who busted reindeer images on a street sign. The officials suggested the kids work off the cost of the damages by helping put up holiday decorations, but the kids didn’t show.
Worse things have happened here. The community was shaken in the 1990s when a young man killed four people in their home just outside of town.
Debating new bells and whistles
Grisham, the secretary, said she moved to the community long ago for an affordable home, not for the Santa Claus moniker. It is “a place to invest in life and family,” she added.
In early December neighbors gathered for the city’s annual Southern-style family meal at the community center, with a traditional visit from Santa.
Santa Claus Mayor Donita Bowen, a prep cook at a steakhouse in nearby Lyons, worries that on weekends travelers looking for a little Santa magic won’t have enough to fill their Christmas spirit. She’s thinking about putting out a sign by the gift shop with her phone number on it, letting visitors know they can call her to let them in when city hall is shuttered.
This year, to improve photo-taking options, Bowen ordered a holiday-themed board with cutouts for people to put their faces through. She also had “Santa’s phone number” posted on the city’s homepage so kids could leave a message for him, and has tried to convince residents to at least decorate their front doors.
She’d also like to use the city’s web site and Facebook page to let more people know they could have stamped letters marked with the city logo — if she can find a volunteer to help Grisham.
A tiny city can only do so much to please visitors, Bowen said. “If you are expecting a lot of hoopla ... and markets, we don’t have that kind of stuff.”
Wright, who helped fund construction of the local chapel, is concerned about the costs.
“We didn’t build the city and keep it debt free to please other people from somewhere else,” said Wright, who is supposed to be paid $1 a year as city manager but has yet to collect.
Meanwhile, the state is doubling the number of lanes on U.S. 1, but a new section of the highway would bypass Santa Claus.
The mayor wants to have city signs installed on the new roadway. She wants to be sure everyone can find Santa Claus, if they just look.
