April 16, 2024 • 34 mins
Pat Koch and an army of figurative elves respond to upwards of 30,000 letters per year that are addressed to Santa Claus and miraculously arrive in their town of Santa Claus, Indiana. No one is paying them to do this, they're just normal folks doing the right thing because they can. And Pat is officially the "Chief Elf" of the town!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:06):
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Pat Cook, right after these brief messages from our
Genner sponsors. So your dad was Santa Claus until nineteen
(00:34):
eighty eight, is what you said? Four?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
My brother passed away in eighty three, and he passed
away in eighty four.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Well, Santa Claus may pass but Christmas doesn't. And I
guess that's where Pat becomes Mss Clause, our chief l
for what happens. Tell you weren't going to let this
legacy of children's letters coming to Santa Claus, Indiana die
(01:09):
with your father, And in fact, everything you've done since then,
in a beautiful way, honors your father's legacy because had
he not picked up the first bag in his car
from the first postmaster and decided these letters weren't going
to go unanswered, this thing wouldn't have started. But I
guess you picked it up. Is that how it worked?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes? Actually I started when I was probably twelve years old.
My brother and I had a little problem with dad
being Santa but we believed in Santa Claus. We just
thought he was Santa Claus and everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Why not, Why wouldn't you. I mean, that's your childhood,
right right.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I mean I grew up with bells and suits and
boots and slaves and all of that. And we'd come
to the grade school. I want that little girl with
the brown eyes in the front row to sing a
song for me, which is he'd always do that, always
had to sing a song. But anyway, Yes, he passed
(02:11):
away in eighty four, and the last time he was
Santa Claus he was at the park became Holiday World
in eighty three or eighty four, one of those years.
I'm bad with numbers. He was Santa there as it
was Santa claus Land and now Holiday World and has
grown much, very very big. So he was on stage
(02:33):
when they were issuing a first issue stamp at Santa
Claus behind the scenes with him. He was he was
ninety and he walked out on the stage. He always
rang his bells and said a big hope, hope, hope.
The whole whole theater stood on their hands, stood up
(02:55):
and clapped, I think, and just to honor him and
as old as he was. And that was the last
time he appeared at Santa and it was. It made
me cry. But the thing he told me as I
was taking care of him in his old age, Pat,
don't let the people put in the paper that Santa
(03:17):
Claus died. I was Santa Claus. But somebody will carry
on and Santa Claus is forever. And they did not
put that in the paper. And I did, you know,
that's a good thing, but.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
At that time, so you pick it and you picked
it up from there.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, I've never been Santa Claus, but I have a
book called Santa's Daughter, and I'm in a Santa Claus
suit on the front of that book. But what I
did do was carry on the letter writing, which I
started helping him when I was about twelve. And of
course the ten years I was gone, I didn't do it.
Came back and immediately picked it up again. And then
(03:58):
at some point it is organized into the Santazel's Incorporated
because Bill it has become. We did this past season
we called from Thanksgiving to Christmas over twenty three thousand letters.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
We'll see three thousand letters that have to be answered.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, yes, and some years it's thirty thousand.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And the post must have you must have literally an
army of folks. I know it's I know it's a
little shameless plug, but you must have an army of
folks answering these letters in and around your town.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
We have volunteers and they're wonderful. And we have some
people that come every day. We have some people who
come once. We have people who come twice a week.
We have some groups that come after work maybe. And
we are in a little room that only holds fourteen people,
but we're very organized.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And how does it work If my kid, when my
kid was he's five years old, from Memphis, back when
one of them was five, if they wrote a letter
to Santa Claus and put a stamp on it, does
it just get to you guys? Somehow does the post
office honor that tradition? How does it work? That's how
(05:19):
it works, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It works if it says the guy in the big
red suit, if it says north Pole, you know it's
that Christmas season. If we could be that way all
year long, wouldn't it be wonderful? I mean, everybody along
the way will add an address, will add PO Box one,
Santa Claus, Indiana, or they will they help. It's an
(05:44):
amazing phenomenon. And when you asked about the army this,
I have a well, my daughter and her daughter, so
it's there helping. We usually start early before Thanksgiving so
that we don't get a big backlog. But I have
to tell you we have four form letters, plus the
(06:05):
letter my father wrote long ago, but it's incursive, so
we can't always use that. But we have letters that
are a dear friend, dear little friend, Merry Christmas, and
dear and they have certain messages in them. Every letter
that comes from the child is opened, it is read,
(06:27):
then the volunteer picks the letter that they think would
be best for that child. They put the child's name
in the salutation dear friend, susy Hammah, and then at
the bottom of the letter they put a personal note
message that picks up from something in their letter, so
(06:47):
they know Santa read it. Like if they say, my
sister and I had a fight yesterday and I hate her.
Santa wants you to love your sister. Please be good
to your sister. The child knows that Santa read their letter.
So it doesn't mean everybody sits down and writes a
(07:08):
whole letter, because that's impossible. We tried to email one year.
It doesn't work. I won't do that because it just
says the name, the age, and what they want and
we want a letter because that child learns to write
a letter. A child, they pour out their hearts in
those letters.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What does it you know? Listen as a father for five,
six and seven year olds will say things that absolutely
floor you that you're like, where did that come from?
And it reminds me of like when in kindergarten first
grade the teachers would send home artwork or little things
(07:49):
that the kids said or whatever, and you read them
and it's just like, what, how does my child even
know that? So given that kind of background as a dad,
I mean, I can only imagine what's written in some
of these letters. And I'm sure some of them are funny,
but I also got to I think some of them
are just heartbreaking. And what do you hear in these letters?
(08:12):
Give us a sense of what you're happening when you're reading.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I'll start with sad and andy with funny. We have,
as I said, a book. It's from nineteen thirty to
nineteen I can't remember. We need another book, but it's
a history of toys children, how they wrote, what they wanted.
If you see that book the letters, Yes, we cry,
(08:37):
we laugh. We do not say ever ever, and I
have rules. You never say Santa will send you the
you wanted puppy, you'll get a puppy. No, no, no no.
We never mentioned what they ask for because we don't
know and we're not going to promise something. But they
(08:57):
will say things like my grandma's dying of cancer, Santa,
can you send some love to my grandma? Or I'm
living with my dad, I want to live with my mom,
or you know, just things like that, family, things that
make you very very sad. One little boy said, you know,
I'm not very smart, but I wish people wouldn't think
(09:17):
that I'm dumb. One child wrote, my mother works so much.
I know she's doing it for us, but I wish
she'd be home with us more. They really do. They
do tell us so many things, and we share that
because that's I think. That's what If people come in
one day to do one letter, they say they're hooked,
(09:39):
and they come back because you feel like you're really
doing and some mother send us pictures of the child
opening the letter. The letter has my father's picture on
it in a sleigh in Santa Claus and even the
envelope has his picture on it, so they're no, it's
(10:00):
coming from Santa. And then they get a special stamp
on it at the post office that it has changed
every year. There's a contest in school for artists student
artists to paint as it has a name, but it's
a big stamp that cancels that and it's always very
Christmas Eve. So that's the other part. We have to
(10:20):
sit down, we have to open the letters. No, the
man that gets the mail opens them. He puts families together,
so if there's three kids in the family, you had
four four kids in the family, he staples those together.
So we are sure that each child gets a different letter,
that we don't send the same letter to four kids.
(10:40):
We're very careful about all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
We'll be right back. So I mean, in a sense,
(11:11):
you're being Santa Claus and answering Santa Claus letter and
the spirit of Christmas and everything, But in some of
the letters you're talking about, you're also just trying to
reassure a child that there's love in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, yes, Santa loves you. Our missus Klaus sends love
the elves are so busy working, but they are doing
it because they are hoping you have a wonderful Christmas.
We do spend a lot of time. I ask, what
do you think I should say to this? Of course
I've done it so long that it's not hard to
(11:48):
think of something to say. But the funny ones, the
great ones, and you'll I hope you'll really enjoy this
as much as I did. This little boy said, Dear Santa,
please make my dad smarter.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
What do you say to that? Sorry, your dad's a dumbo.
We did the best. We could send another letter next year.
We'll try to give you what you want.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
We got a letter from a child and I saw
that it had something in it. Now we get gum drops,
we get chewing gum, We get candy, we get pictures,
wedding pictures, we get the shopping list. We get the
bill from the plumber. But this child I opened it. No,
(12:49):
it was opened. This man gets the mail every morning,
goes through it, puts it together. As I told you,
they go in stacks of local oh, by the way,
from all the countries in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
We get letters every Yeah, I was I was going
to ask you do you get them from you don't
just get them from the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Did you get any this year from children from Ukraine?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Did any of them say would you make them stop
fighting or any of that kind of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No, But we have always gotten letters from Russia. Last
year those letters were returned, were returned, They were not
given to the children. They were not they were not.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
The Russian government wouldn't allow your letters to get to
the Russian children.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm supposing. Yeah, there you go again with the army
of people. We have a couple that live in jasper In,
about half an hour away, and that is their ministry
to answer the foreign learners. Now that postage is a
dollar in something. Our postage bill is eighteen to twenty
(14:13):
thousand dollars a year, and that is covered by donations
if possible, and just get it done.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So twenty thousand to twenty three thousand to thirty thousand
letters a year. How many people are volunteering to answer
all of these letters or and it's not really an organization,
it's for your city and your community and your culture.
How many people are doing it? Well?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
You know, when people ask that question, I guess someday
I need to count. I don't know. We have a room.
It's the back room of that original post office building.
It has one table for eight and another table that
would seat six, so it's people fourteen people can sit.
(15:04):
As I said, it's we have become an electronic world
like you're Alex knows and I don't, but our wonderful director.
At this point, Kathleen started sign up Genius, so if
somebody wants to volunteer to do letters, they will sign
up on sign up Genius. And she knows then on
(15:27):
December twelfth, we already have ten people, or she knows
that on December thirteenth, we only have two, so can
you come on December thirteenth. So's it's getting better and
better organized all the time, so that we have consistency.
And I'm called the chief help. Yes, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Very picul about the I'm very.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Particular about those letters because they have to be done
with respect, and we can't say something stupid or silly,
and we did have that happened one time. Somebody can't say, well,
you don't believe this, do you, because somebody did and
(16:11):
the mother called it back. Really, to my knowledge, just
once but I go through at random letters just to
be sure that they're all being done with respect and properly.
So this army of people, what happened this year? It
was God bless the post office department. The post office
(16:32):
in Santa Claus is overwhelmed because people come here to
get that special stamp for their Christmas cards and their
Christmas letters, and then we come in with boxes full
of letters to go out by two o'clock in the afternoon.
They have to be there ready to go, and so
they're so overwhelmed. But the post office department this year
(16:56):
was really behind. I don't know if it was I
understood COVID. And then well, on the twenty ninth, we
usually have a date we call it cutoff date because
the letters will not get to the child before Christmas
if we mail them out, say on the twenty third,
(17:16):
and it's going to Oregon or Montana, right, so we
have to have a cutoff date. Well, we were getting
letters on the twenty ninth that had been mailed on
the thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of people have experienced
that with the post office since COVID.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So we have gotten our director said, I'm going to
design a postcard that's going to be cheaper for us,
so the child will receive a pretty Christmas e postcard.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Saint.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Your letter arrived after Santa had gone back to the
North Pole. We're very sorry.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
We hope you have.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A merry Christmas, but we can't any very Christmas letter
out to somebody that's not going to get it until
after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
This is a whole it's a whole shooting match organization.
You guys got going on there to answer all these letters. Yes, yes,
So at what point during this entire process of reassuring kids,
of giving kids love, of trying to make sure children
(18:27):
who want to write to Santa Claus get an answer
from Santa Claus Indiana which is all idyllic and fairy telly,
but it's real and it's so heartwarming, did you decide
Santa Claus needs a Santa Claus Museum.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well, it was in two thousand and six, and I
look back at that and it's twenty four. That's been
eighteen years ago. I suddenly realized as I got older,
many people didn't know how the town was named, or
why it was named, or who lived here, who were
(19:06):
our first inhabitants, who built this little town? Where did
they come from? How did Santa claus Land start? My
husband and I created a gated community called Christmas Lake
Village in order to draw people in, to help grow
(19:27):
the community, so that we'd have better schools, and so
that we would have more population if the county was
dying and it needed help. All those things, all those
things went into old people would say. Christmas Lake that
we developed has a very large lake, two small lakes,
(19:49):
a golf course, tennis courts, playground areas, it's gated, and
it's beautiful, and it brought people to live there, especially
now we have so many people from California all over.
It's just amazing because we're in a little pocket of
the world here. It's just a little different.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm not saying it's perfect, No, not at all. There's crime,
but not hugely so, and it's an idyllic kind of place.
And I'm hoping to write the history of all that.
That's why I started the museum, to preserve that history
(20:32):
of the town, of the village, of the park of
Christmas Lake, so that some time after I'm gone, that
will still live on and people will have the truth
about things, because you know, if you don't have that
document saying how the town was named, there's a legend
(20:55):
that's beautiful, but it's not the truth.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And your museum straightens that out. Yes, so is because
it's called Santa Claus and it's got Christmas Lake, and
obviously the Christmas theme that is permeating the culture. Is
it Christmas all the time there?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, everything is Christmas y and that's okay. We're still growing.
We're just a small town to twenty five hundred. Maybe
that's because of the village and we have now two
high schools in the county and several elementary schools that
(21:46):
are very good. By the way, my goal is to
retain the small town wonderful atmosphere or culture that exists there.
Go to the high school basketball games and cheer on
the team no matter how old or or how long
(22:07):
it was since you've graduated, have turtle soup parties and
have it. You know, it's it's that small town stuff
that I think really binds people together and creates a
special kind of culture. So like for my museum, it's
very quaint. It has the original post office, it has
(22:28):
the original church which was eighteen eighty with all the original.
Everything in it is original, absolutely beautiful, with the kerosene
lamps and the organ that you had to pump with
your feet to make it go. And we had a
program this year and I sang Silent Night in German
and two people came up to me and said, now
(22:49):
I really feel the spirit of Christmas in that little
church in the dark with those lamps. Schilenacht in German
is pretty special. That special feeling I think, not neon,
not glittery stuff. Well, we have Christmas lights all over
all the time. But you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, I do. I do, And I can't think of
any better person with any greater perspective to be answering
the cause of children for all of the world to
Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I dedicate my life to it in November December as
my daughter and her daughters. She has three daughters and
they've grown up helping. We don't allow the letters to
leave the yron the post office because you have to
be very careful because of the culture today that somebody
doesn't get a hold of an address or a name.
(23:48):
So we do everything there. But I'm very proud of
the fact that they have been very involved. And my
other daughter is in an Annapolis, which is of course
the state capital, and she and her daughter came down
and spent a weekend and helped. I forgot to say
that teachers love to use this as a method of
(24:09):
teaching children to write letters. We get big boxes of
one hundred letters from a grade school.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Unbelievable. We'll be right back the show as an army
of normal folks. And we have covered a lot of
(24:38):
heavy topics here and then lighter topics. And this is
such a feel good, warm topic story. One of the
things I hear a lot that really frustrates me. And
it doesn't frustrate me if the people had ask it.
It frustrates me sometimes because I'm not sure. I always
have a great answer. And the question is I love
(25:03):
that story, I love her story, his story. I love
the podcast about this person or that person what they're doing,
and it's so inspiring and it makes me want to
get involved, but I just don't know how. And I
get people's inhibitions. I get people's reticence, I get people's
reluctance and fears, and unfortunately in our society, I get
(25:29):
people's desire, not desire, but inclination to withdraw from a
fear of being judged or a fear of being seen
in one way or another. And in my estimation, those reticence,
that reluctance, that fear prohibits personal growth and most importantly,
(25:54):
prohibits this army of normal folks seeing areas of need
and filling it. Pat you're ninety two and a half.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
You come from I can celebrate my ninetieth birthday because
it was during COVID.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
You're ninety two and a half. You're the daughter of
a father who served in World War One, who built
boats that served our country in World War Two, who
stopped by the postmaster not long after the Great Depression
because he had a heart to answer children's letters, who
(26:34):
simply wanted love or boots or food, whose legacy is
now literally almost one hundred years later. What do you
say to someone with all of your experience and all
of the legacy from your father to you, to now
your daughters, and to what you're doing to put a
(26:55):
smile on a child's face from as far away as
Russia and China and the Ukraine by simply taking the
time to answer a letter. They wrote to Santa Claus.
What do you say to somebody who says, I really
want to do something good, but I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I really want to do something good. I say, take
a risk, do it.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Just step out there.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Huh, yes, get out there, but research it. Be sure
it's real. You know what I mean about that, that
the money is being used properly or whatever you're going
to try to do. Who are the people involved, how's
it being run? All those sorts of things. But that's
(27:47):
if you don't do that, that's good, things aren't going
to keep happening. I think we have to be willing,
as you said, to look foolish. Why in the world
are you sitting here doing this to make mistakes, but
(28:07):
to give and keep giving and keep giving and keep
giving and the happiness and that's see, that's when my
dad saw. My dad saw the joy in those children's
eyes when he was Santa on that ship in nineteen fourteen. Uh,
and that cost that ripple of stuff that happened and
(28:27):
made him Santa Jim all his life. People say, oh,
he was the real Santa. He was Santa he knew
several languages. I mean, I could you know I loved
him so much, and I have him in the in
the museum. I saved everything about him, his suit, his boots,
his big belt, his cane, his mittens, the book he
(28:53):
read from the nine before Christmas that he had paper
clips in where to bread to the children. And he's
sitting there behind a mural that was in Santa claus Land.
So you know, they come up and they say, that's
the way I saw it when I was a little kid.
So there's just so many ways to make people happy.
And it's it, I know, And you know that you're
(29:17):
rewarded one hundred times over.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I have said that every single time, and I love that.
I didn't have to be the one who said it,
but you said it. And honestly, Pat, what your response
was is not at all surprising. Take a risk from
a sixteen year old who wanted more education and got
out a bus and showed up somewhere because she wanted
(29:39):
to expand her education to come full circle to the
unbelievable life you've led, I guess take a risk is
just second nature to Pat Cook.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yes, and I keep saying it's wonderful to grow old
because now it doesn't matter what somebody thinks.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Okay, I got one more question. I'm going to throw
you a softball and we're going to end with it.
We live in ever increasingly difficult times. We have geopolitical issues,
we have the and we're not going to get into
the politics of it. But the fact is we have
three things going on in the Middle East with Israel
(30:24):
and Palestine and Syria, and with the Huthis. We've got
the Russia Ukraine thing. We've got really domestic discord politically
where none of the front runners have more than forty
five percent of approval rating, which says a lot about
the division. We now have media outlets who are heavily
(30:47):
incented by power and money to continue to craft narratives
that divide us that are often inaccurate. I think we
are surrounded by a lot of people who have a
lot of power and gain and control power by continuing
to scare us by the boogeyman from one side of
(31:09):
the aisle of the other. And we have arguments and
concerns over global warming and what's causing it. And I mean,
I really can go on and on about all of
the things that face we humans today and could argue
that some of them teeter on being existential. But I
(31:32):
can also tell you at Christmas time, when I'm with
my children and my wife, it doesn't seem to matter
quite as much. But there are skeptics out there who
will say the spirit of Christmas is fast us. What
do you say to that path.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
The Spirit of Christmas is forever, and it will live
forever because good overcomes evil.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I love that, pat and I'll tell you this. I
love the fact that they're twenty three thirty thousand children
every single year that write a letter to Santa Claus,
often not about getting a game Boy, but more about
wanting something for their siblings or their parents who there's
an army of volunteers in a little place called Santa Claus,
(32:28):
Indiana that put a smile on the face of a
child at Christmas time and reassure them that they're being
heard and loved. And that is the spirit of Christmas?
Is it not?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It is? It is? I have a plaque on it
says keep the Spirit of Christmas all here long. Wouldn't that? See?
All this would be over if we had the spirit
of Christmas all the time, because we're happy and we're cheerful,
and we're giving and we're caring, and we're outside of
(33:09):
ourselves and especially with children. If we could do that,
it would be a wonderful world.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Said from the Chief Elf from Santa Claus, Indiana to
her and her army of elves, put smiles on children's
faces across the globe at Christmas time. That Cook, you
are phenomenal and I just really can't wait to see
what you're doing in fifteen or twenty years from now,
because you have so much more work to do.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I do, That's what I say. I have to keep.
I have so much to do, very.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Very big, Pat. It has been an absolutely pleasure. Thank
you for joining me and in the middle of a year,
Merry Christmas Path.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Merry Christmas to you, keep the spirit and believe, believe,
keep believing.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Thank you, Pat, and thank you for joining us this week.
If Pat Cook or another guest has inspired you in general,
or better yet, to take action, please let me know.
I'd love to hear about it. You can write me
anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us and I will respond.
(34:24):
And if you enjoyed this episode, please share with friends
and on social subscribe to our podcast, rate and review it,
become a premium member at Normalfolks dot us. All these
things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.
Hey, everybody, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part two of our conversation
with Pat Cook, right after these brief messages from our
Genner sponsors. So your dad was Santa Claus until nineteen
(00:34):
eighty eight, is what you said? Four?
Speaker 2 (00:37):
My brother passed away in eighty three, and he passed
away in eighty four.
Speaker 1 (00:44):
Well, Santa Claus may pass but Christmas doesn't. And I
guess that's where Pat becomes Mss Clause, our chief l
for what happens. Tell you weren't going to let this
legacy of children's letters coming to Santa Claus, Indiana die
(01:09):
with your father, And in fact, everything you've done since then,
in a beautiful way, honors your father's legacy because had
he not picked up the first bag in his car
from the first postmaster and decided these letters weren't going
to go unanswered, this thing wouldn't have started. But I
guess you picked it up. Is that how it worked?
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Yes? Actually I started when I was probably twelve years old.
My brother and I had a little problem with dad
being Santa but we believed in Santa Claus. We just
thought he was Santa Claus and everybody.
Speaker 1 (01:46):
Why not, Why wouldn't you. I mean, that's your childhood,
right right.
Speaker 2 (01:51):
I mean I grew up with bells and suits and
boots and slaves and all of that. And we'd come
to the grade school. I want that little girl with
the brown eyes in the front row to sing a
song for me, which is he'd always do that, always
had to sing a song. But anyway, Yes, he passed
(02:11):
away in eighty four, and the last time he was
Santa Claus he was at the park became Holiday World
in eighty three or eighty four, one of those years.
I'm bad with numbers. He was Santa there as it
was Santa claus Land and now Holiday World and has
grown much, very very big. So he was on stage
(02:33):
when they were issuing a first issue stamp at Santa
Claus behind the scenes with him. He was he was
ninety and he walked out on the stage. He always
rang his bells and said a big hope, hope, hope.
The whole whole theater stood on their hands, stood up
(02:55):
and clapped, I think, and just to honor him and
as old as he was. And that was the last
time he appeared at Santa and it was. It made
me cry. But the thing he told me as I
was taking care of him in his old age, Pat,
don't let the people put in the paper that Santa
(03:17):
Claus died. I was Santa Claus. But somebody will carry
on and Santa Claus is forever. And they did not
put that in the paper. And I did, you know,
that's a good thing, but.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
At that time, so you pick it and you picked
it up from there.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Well, I've never been Santa Claus, but I have a
book called Santa's Daughter, and I'm in a Santa Claus
suit on the front of that book. But what I
did do was carry on the letter writing, which I
started helping him when I was about twelve. And of
course the ten years I was gone, I didn't do it.
Came back and immediately picked it up again. And then
(03:58):
at some point it is organized into the Santazel's Incorporated
because Bill it has become. We did this past season
we called from Thanksgiving to Christmas over twenty three thousand letters.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
We'll see three thousand letters that have to be answered.
Speaker 2 (04:17):
Yes, yes, and some years it's thirty thousand.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
And the post must have you must have literally an
army of folks. I know it's I know it's a
little shameless plug, but you must have an army of
folks answering these letters in and around your town.
Speaker 2 (04:36):
We have volunteers and they're wonderful. And we have some
people that come every day. We have some people who
come once. We have people who come twice a week.
We have some groups that come after work maybe. And
we are in a little room that only holds fourteen people,
but we're very organized.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
And how does it work If my kid, when my
kid was he's five years old, from Memphis, back when
one of them was five, if they wrote a letter
to Santa Claus and put a stamp on it, does
it just get to you guys? Somehow does the post
office honor that tradition? How does it work? That's how
(05:19):
it works, no kidding.
Speaker 2 (05:21):
It works if it says the guy in the big
red suit, if it says north Pole, you know it's
that Christmas season. If we could be that way all
year long, wouldn't it be wonderful? I mean, everybody along
the way will add an address, will add PO Box one,
Santa Claus, Indiana, or they will they help. It's an
(05:44):
amazing phenomenon. And when you asked about the army this,
I have a well, my daughter and her daughter, so
it's there helping. We usually start early before Thanksgiving so
that we don't get a big backlog. But I have
to tell you we have four form letters, plus the
(06:05):
letter my father wrote long ago, but it's incursive, so
we can't always use that. But we have letters that
are a dear friend, dear little friend, Merry Christmas, and
dear and they have certain messages in them. Every letter
that comes from the child is opened, it is read,
(06:27):
then the volunteer picks the letter that they think would
be best for that child. They put the child's name
in the salutation dear friend, susy Hammah, and then at
the bottom of the letter they put a personal note
message that picks up from something in their letter, so
(06:47):
they know Santa read it. Like if they say, my
sister and I had a fight yesterday and I hate her.
Santa wants you to love your sister. Please be good
to your sister. The child knows that Santa read their letter.
So it doesn't mean everybody sits down and writes a
(07:08):
whole letter, because that's impossible. We tried to email one year.
It doesn't work. I won't do that because it just
says the name, the age, and what they want and
we want a letter because that child learns to write
a letter. A child, they pour out their hearts in
those letters.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
What does it you know? Listen as a father for five,
six and seven year olds will say things that absolutely
floor you that you're like, where did that come from?
And it reminds me of like when in kindergarten first
grade the teachers would send home artwork or little things
(07:49):
that the kids said or whatever, and you read them
and it's just like, what, how does my child even
know that? So given that kind of background as a dad,
I mean, I can only imagine what's written in some
of these letters. And I'm sure some of them are funny,
but I also got to I think some of them
are just heartbreaking. And what do you hear in these letters?
(08:12):
Give us a sense of what you're happening when you're reading.
Speaker 2 (08:16):
I'll start with sad and andy with funny. We have,
as I said, a book. It's from nineteen thirty to
nineteen I can't remember. We need another book, but it's
a history of toys children, how they wrote, what they wanted.
If you see that book the letters, Yes, we cry,
(08:37):
we laugh. We do not say ever ever, and I
have rules. You never say Santa will send you the
you wanted puppy, you'll get a puppy. No, no, no no.
We never mentioned what they ask for because we don't
know and we're not going to promise something. But they
(08:57):
will say things like my grandma's dying of cancer, Santa,
can you send some love to my grandma? Or I'm
living with my dad, I want to live with my mom,
or you know, just things like that, family, things that
make you very very sad. One little boy said, you know,
I'm not very smart, but I wish people wouldn't think
(09:17):
that I'm dumb. One child wrote, my mother works so much.
I know she's doing it for us, but I wish
she'd be home with us more. They really do. They
do tell us so many things, and we share that
because that's I think. That's what If people come in
one day to do one letter, they say they're hooked,
(09:39):
and they come back because you feel like you're really
doing and some mother send us pictures of the child
opening the letter. The letter has my father's picture on
it in a sleigh in Santa Claus and even the
envelope has his picture on it, so they're no, it's
(10:00):
coming from Santa. And then they get a special stamp
on it at the post office that it has changed
every year. There's a contest in school for artists student
artists to paint as it has a name, but it's
a big stamp that cancels that and it's always very
Christmas Eve. So that's the other part. We have to
(10:20):
sit down, we have to open the letters. No, the
man that gets the mail opens them. He puts families together,
so if there's three kids in the family, you had
four four kids in the family, he staples those together.
So we are sure that each child gets a different letter,
that we don't send the same letter to four kids.
(10:40):
We're very careful about all of that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
We'll be right back. So I mean, in a sense,
(11:11):
you're being Santa Claus and answering Santa Claus letter and
the spirit of Christmas and everything, But in some of
the letters you're talking about, you're also just trying to
reassure a child that there's love in the world.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Yes, yes, Santa loves you. Our missus Klaus sends love
the elves are so busy working, but they are doing
it because they are hoping you have a wonderful Christmas.
We do spend a lot of time. I ask, what
do you think I should say to this? Of course
I've done it so long that it's not hard to
(11:48):
think of something to say. But the funny ones, the
great ones, and you'll I hope you'll really enjoy this
as much as I did. This little boy said, Dear Santa,
please make my dad smarter.
Speaker 1 (12:07):
What do you say to that? Sorry, your dad's a dumbo.
We did the best. We could send another letter next year.
We'll try to give you what you want.
Speaker 2 (12:21):
We got a letter from a child and I saw
that it had something in it. Now we get gum drops,
we get chewing gum, We get candy, we get pictures,
wedding pictures, we get the shopping list. We get the
bill from the plumber. But this child I opened it. No,
(12:49):
it was opened. This man gets the mail every morning,
goes through it, puts it together. As I told you,
they go in stacks of local oh, by the way,
from all the countries in the world.
Speaker 1 (13:03):
We get letters every Yeah, I was I was going
to ask you do you get them from you don't
just get them from the United States.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Germany.
Speaker 1 (13:17):
Did you get any this year from children from Ukraine?
Speaker 2 (13:22):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (13:23):
Did any of them say would you make them stop
fighting or any of that kind of thing? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (13:29):
No, But we have always gotten letters from Russia. Last
year those letters were returned, were returned, They were not
given to the children. They were not they were not.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
The Russian government wouldn't allow your letters to get to
the Russian children.
Speaker 2 (13:50):
I'm supposing. Yeah, there you go again with the army
of people. We have a couple that live in jasper In,
about half an hour away, and that is their ministry
to answer the foreign learners. Now that postage is a
dollar in something. Our postage bill is eighteen to twenty
(14:13):
thousand dollars a year, and that is covered by donations
if possible, and just get it done.
Speaker 1 (14:23):
So twenty thousand to twenty three thousand to thirty thousand
letters a year. How many people are volunteering to answer
all of these letters or and it's not really an organization,
it's for your city and your community and your culture.
How many people are doing it? Well?
Speaker 2 (14:44):
You know, when people ask that question, I guess someday
I need to count. I don't know. We have a room.
It's the back room of that original post office building.
It has one table for eight and another table that
would seat six, so it's people fourteen people can sit.
(15:04):
As I said, it's we have become an electronic world
like you're Alex knows and I don't, but our wonderful director.
At this point, Kathleen started sign up Genius, so if
somebody wants to volunteer to do letters, they will sign
up on sign up Genius. And she knows then on
(15:27):
December twelfth, we already have ten people, or she knows
that on December thirteenth, we only have two, so can
you come on December thirteenth. So's it's getting better and
better organized all the time, so that we have consistency.
And I'm called the chief help. Yes, and I'm.
Speaker 1 (15:48):
Very picul about the I'm very.
Speaker 2 (15:51):
Particular about those letters because they have to be done
with respect, and we can't say something stupid or silly,
and we did have that happened one time. Somebody can't say, well,
you don't believe this, do you, because somebody did and
(16:11):
the mother called it back. Really, to my knowledge, just
once but I go through at random letters just to
be sure that they're all being done with respect and properly.
So this army of people, what happened this year? It
was God bless the post office department. The post office
(16:32):
in Santa Claus is overwhelmed because people come here to
get that special stamp for their Christmas cards and their
Christmas letters, and then we come in with boxes full
of letters to go out by two o'clock in the afternoon.
They have to be there ready to go, and so
they're so overwhelmed. But the post office department this year
(16:56):
was really behind. I don't know if it was I
understood COVID. And then well, on the twenty ninth, we
usually have a date we call it cutoff date because
the letters will not get to the child before Christmas
if we mail them out, say on the twenty third,
(17:16):
and it's going to Oregon or Montana, right, so we
have to have a cutoff date. Well, we were getting
letters on the twenty ninth that had been mailed on
the thirteenth.
Speaker 1 (17:31):
Yeah, unfortunately, I think a lot of people have experienced
that with the post office since COVID.
Speaker 2 (17:37):
So we have gotten our director said, I'm going to
design a postcard that's going to be cheaper for us,
so the child will receive a pretty Christmas e postcard.
Speaker 1 (17:50):
Saint.
Speaker 2 (17:50):
Your letter arrived after Santa had gone back to the
North Pole. We're very sorry.
Speaker 1 (17:57):
We hope you have.
Speaker 2 (17:58):
A merry Christmas, but we can't any very Christmas letter
out to somebody that's not going to get it until
after Christmas.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
This is a whole it's a whole shooting match organization.
You guys got going on there to answer all these letters. Yes, yes,
So at what point during this entire process of reassuring kids,
of giving kids love, of trying to make sure children
(18:27):
who want to write to Santa Claus get an answer
from Santa Claus Indiana which is all idyllic and fairy telly,
but it's real and it's so heartwarming, did you decide
Santa Claus needs a Santa Claus Museum.
Speaker 2 (18:45):
Well, it was in two thousand and six, and I
look back at that and it's twenty four. That's been
eighteen years ago. I suddenly realized as I got older,
many people didn't know how the town was named, or
why it was named, or who lived here, who were
(19:06):
our first inhabitants, who built this little town? Where did
they come from? How did Santa claus Land start? My
husband and I created a gated community called Christmas Lake
Village in order to draw people in, to help grow
(19:27):
the community, so that we'd have better schools, and so
that we would have more population if the county was
dying and it needed help. All those things, all those
things went into old people would say. Christmas Lake that
we developed has a very large lake, two small lakes,
(19:49):
a golf course, tennis courts, playground areas, it's gated, and
it's beautiful, and it brought people to live there, especially
now we have so many people from California all over.
It's just amazing because we're in a little pocket of
the world here. It's just a little different.
Speaker 1 (20:11):
Now.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
I'm not saying it's perfect, No, not at all. There's crime,
but not hugely so, and it's an idyllic kind of place.
And I'm hoping to write the history of all that.
That's why I started the museum, to preserve that history
(20:32):
of the town, of the village, of the park of
Christmas Lake, so that some time after I'm gone, that
will still live on and people will have the truth
about things, because you know, if you don't have that
document saying how the town was named, there's a legend
(20:55):
that's beautiful, but it's not the truth.
Speaker 1 (21:02):
And your museum straightens that out. Yes, so is because
it's called Santa Claus and it's got Christmas Lake, and
obviously the Christmas theme that is permeating the culture. Is
it Christmas all the time there?
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Well, everything is Christmas y and that's okay. We're still growing.
We're just a small town to twenty five hundred. Maybe
that's because of the village and we have now two
high schools in the county and several elementary schools that
(21:46):
are very good. By the way, my goal is to
retain the small town wonderful atmosphere or culture that exists there.
Go to the high school basketball games and cheer on
the team no matter how old or or how long
(22:07):
it was since you've graduated, have turtle soup parties and
have it. You know, it's it's that small town stuff
that I think really binds people together and creates a
special kind of culture. So like for my museum, it's
very quaint. It has the original post office, it has
(22:28):
the original church which was eighteen eighty with all the original.
Everything in it is original, absolutely beautiful, with the kerosene
lamps and the organ that you had to pump with
your feet to make it go. And we had a
program this year and I sang Silent Night in German
and two people came up to me and said, now
(22:49):
I really feel the spirit of Christmas in that little
church in the dark with those lamps. Schilenacht in German
is pretty special. That special feeling I think, not neon,
not glittery stuff. Well, we have Christmas lights all over
all the time. But you understand what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (23:10):
Yeah, I do. I do, And I can't think of
any better person with any greater perspective to be answering
the cause of children for all of the world to
Santa Claus.
Speaker 2 (23:26):
I dedicate my life to it in November December as
my daughter and her daughters. She has three daughters and
they've grown up helping. We don't allow the letters to
leave the yron the post office because you have to
be very careful because of the culture today that somebody
doesn't get a hold of an address or a name.
(23:48):
So we do everything there. But I'm very proud of
the fact that they have been very involved. And my
other daughter is in an Annapolis, which is of course
the state capital, and she and her daughter came down
and spent a weekend and helped. I forgot to say
that teachers love to use this as a method of
(24:09):
teaching children to write letters. We get big boxes of
one hundred letters from a grade school.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
Unbelievable. We'll be right back the show as an army
of normal folks. And we have covered a lot of
(24:38):
heavy topics here and then lighter topics. And this is
such a feel good, warm topic story. One of the
things I hear a lot that really frustrates me. And
it doesn't frustrate me if the people had ask it.
It frustrates me sometimes because I'm not sure. I always
have a great answer. And the question is I love
(25:03):
that story, I love her story, his story. I love
the podcast about this person or that person what they're doing,
and it's so inspiring and it makes me want to
get involved, but I just don't know how. And I
get people's inhibitions. I get people's reticence, I get people's
reluctance and fears, and unfortunately in our society, I get
(25:29):
people's desire, not desire, but inclination to withdraw from a
fear of being judged or a fear of being seen
in one way or another. And in my estimation, those reticence,
that reluctance, that fear prohibits personal growth and most importantly,
(25:54):
prohibits this army of normal folks seeing areas of need
and filling it. Pat you're ninety two and a half.
Speaker 2 (26:05):
You come from I can celebrate my ninetieth birthday because
it was during COVID.
Speaker 1 (26:11):
You're ninety two and a half. You're the daughter of
a father who served in World War One, who built
boats that served our country in World War Two, who
stopped by the postmaster not long after the Great Depression
because he had a heart to answer children's letters, who
(26:34):
simply wanted love or boots or food, whose legacy is
now literally almost one hundred years later. What do you
say to someone with all of your experience and all
of the legacy from your father to you, to now
your daughters, and to what you're doing to put a
(26:55):
smile on a child's face from as far away as
Russia and China and the Ukraine by simply taking the
time to answer a letter. They wrote to Santa Claus.
What do you say to somebody who says, I really
want to do something good, but I don't know how.
Speaker 2 (27:13):
I really want to do something good. I say, take
a risk, do it.
Speaker 1 (27:22):
Just step out there.
Speaker 2 (27:23):
Huh, yes, get out there, but research it. Be sure
it's real. You know what I mean about that, that
the money is being used properly or whatever you're going
to try to do. Who are the people involved, how's
it being run? All those sorts of things. But that's
(27:47):
if you don't do that, that's good, things aren't going
to keep happening. I think we have to be willing,
as you said, to look foolish. Why in the world
are you sitting here doing this to make mistakes, but
(28:07):
to give and keep giving and keep giving and keep
giving and the happiness and that's see, that's when my
dad saw. My dad saw the joy in those children's
eyes when he was Santa on that ship in nineteen fourteen. Uh,
and that cost that ripple of stuff that happened and
(28:27):
made him Santa Jim all his life. People say, oh,
he was the real Santa. He was Santa he knew
several languages. I mean, I could you know I loved
him so much, and I have him in the in
the museum. I saved everything about him, his suit, his boots,
his big belt, his cane, his mittens, the book he
(28:53):
read from the nine before Christmas that he had paper
clips in where to bread to the children. And he's
sitting there behind a mural that was in Santa claus Land.
So you know, they come up and they say, that's
the way I saw it when I was a little kid.
So there's just so many ways to make people happy.
And it's it, I know, And you know that you're
(29:17):
rewarded one hundred times over.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
I have said that every single time, and I love that.
I didn't have to be the one who said it,
but you said it. And honestly, Pat, what your response
was is not at all surprising. Take a risk from
a sixteen year old who wanted more education and got
out a bus and showed up somewhere because she wanted
(29:39):
to expand her education to come full circle to the
unbelievable life you've led, I guess take a risk is
just second nature to Pat Cook.
Speaker 2 (29:55):
Yes, and I keep saying it's wonderful to grow old
because now it doesn't matter what somebody thinks.
Speaker 1 (30:03):
Okay, I got one more question. I'm going to throw
you a softball and we're going to end with it.
We live in ever increasingly difficult times. We have geopolitical issues,
we have the and we're not going to get into
the politics of it. But the fact is we have
three things going on in the Middle East with Israel
(30:24):
and Palestine and Syria, and with the Huthis. We've got
the Russia Ukraine thing. We've got really domestic discord politically
where none of the front runners have more than forty
five percent of approval rating, which says a lot about
the division. We now have media outlets who are heavily
(30:47):
incented by power and money to continue to craft narratives
that divide us that are often inaccurate. I think we
are surrounded by a lot of people who have a
lot of power and gain and control power by continuing
to scare us by the boogeyman from one side of
(31:09):
the aisle of the other. And we have arguments and
concerns over global warming and what's causing it. And I mean,
I really can go on and on about all of
the things that face we humans today and could argue
that some of them teeter on being existential. But I
(31:32):
can also tell you at Christmas time, when I'm with
my children and my wife, it doesn't seem to matter
quite as much. But there are skeptics out there who
will say the spirit of Christmas is fast us. What
do you say to that path.
Speaker 2 (31:53):
The Spirit of Christmas is forever, and it will live
forever because good overcomes evil.
Speaker 1 (32:06):
I love that, pat and I'll tell you this. I
love the fact that they're twenty three thirty thousand children
every single year that write a letter to Santa Claus,
often not about getting a game Boy, but more about
wanting something for their siblings or their parents who there's
an army of volunteers in a little place called Santa Claus,
(32:28):
Indiana that put a smile on the face of a
child at Christmas time and reassure them that they're being
heard and loved. And that is the spirit of Christmas?
Is it not?
Speaker 2 (32:44):
It is? It is? I have a plaque on it
says keep the Spirit of Christmas all here long. Wouldn't that? See?
All this would be over if we had the spirit
of Christmas all the time, because we're happy and we're cheerful,
and we're giving and we're caring, and we're outside of
(33:09):
ourselves and especially with children. If we could do that,
it would be a wonderful world.
Speaker 1 (33:19):
Said from the Chief Elf from Santa Claus, Indiana to
her and her army of elves, put smiles on children's
faces across the globe at Christmas time. That Cook, you
are phenomenal and I just really can't wait to see
what you're doing in fifteen or twenty years from now,
because you have so much more work to do.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
I do, That's what I say. I have to keep.
I have so much to do, very.
Speaker 1 (33:44):
Very big, Pat. It has been an absolutely pleasure. Thank
you for joining me and in the middle of a year,
Merry Christmas Path.
Speaker 2 (33:57):
Merry Christmas to you, keep the spirit and believe, believe,
keep believing.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
Thank you, Pat, and thank you for joining us this week.
If Pat Cook or another guest has inspired you in general,
or better yet, to take action, please let me know.
I'd love to hear about it. You can write me
anytime at Bill at Normalfolks dot us and I will respond.
(34:24):
And if you enjoyed this episode, please share with friends
and on social subscribe to our podcast, rate and review it,
become a premium member at Normalfolks dot us. All these
things that will help us grow an army of normal folks.
I'm Bill Courtney. I'll see you next week.
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