Imagine getting a holiday card from Santa Claus or from Rudolph!
Wouldn't it be nice to send your family and friends an extra little bit of Faith, Hope or Joy?
Maybe you want to celebrate the season with Saint Mary and Saint Joseph from Bethlehem.
Whether it's your first Noel, or you simply want to add a little extra Christmas cheer to your holiday greeting cards, here's a fun way to decorate your mail with a little Garland, Holly or a Partridge in a Spruce tree.
You can get a special postmark from a number of small-town post offices in the Midwest.
We visited tiny Christmas in Michigan's Upper Peninsula earlier this year, and there was little hint of the frenzied activity this season's influx of mail brings to the town's post office, but Christmas is just one of the Midwestern towns where you can get a little extra holiday cheer to send with your holiday mail free just for the asking.
Post offices in tiny towns like Antler, North Dakota make a tradition of offering re-mailing service from their zip code. The postmaster at Antler, a town just 35 miles from the Canadian border, reports that this is a tradition that started during the 1950s at their office.
Officials in Bethlehem, Indiana estimate that they handle about 120 pieces of mail each week. The total for the year swells to 16,000 pieces with the addition of a six-week surge of mail sent from around the world for re-mailing with a Bethlehem postmark.
Lists of offices suggested for closing by the post office in recent years have some people concerned that places like Antler, Indiana's Bethlehem and Chestnut, Illinois may no longer be able to offer this fun service for postal patrons.
The latest lists I've seen of post offices offering the service still included these towns and more, though.
Santa Claus, Indiana certainly shows no sign of slowing down with its holiday re-mailing service, and its name thankfully didn't appear on any proposed closure lists.
The post office in this southwestern Indiana town attracts mail from all over the world for re-mailing with a special hand-cancellation.
Santa Claus holds a special contest each year, allowing students at the local high school to design a special pictorial postmark for the season.
This is the only post office in the world with this distinctive name. Postal officials began promoting the town's post mark for holiday mail during the late 1920s, and a number of holiday-themed attractions for tourists draw visitors to the area year-round.
Santa Claus looms large in this town, about 50 miles northeast of Evansville, which celebrates the holiday with a multi-week Santa Claus Festival in December. The town is also home to a Santa Claus Museum and many Christmas-themed businesses.
Santa Claus, Indiana processes about 13,000 pieces of mail most months. Post office officials expect to process 400,000 pieces of mail this December.
The folks at Santa Claus offer a few suggestions for prepping your holiday mail before sending it on for them to re-mail for you.
The suggestions include leaving at least a 2-inch by 4-inch space in the stamp area of the envelope and applying postage to each envelope before sending or delivering it to the post office. You can deliver your cards for re-mailing to the post office in person or send them to Postmaster, Santa Claus Station, Santa Claus, Indiana 47579-9998. Package your stamped cards in a sturdy box or envelope, request the holiday post mark and allow ample time for your cards to arrive in Santa Claus, be hand-canceled and re-mailed back out to their eventual destination to arrive by December 24. Avoiding bulky cards and extra items in your mail helps to assure the best imprint for the pictorial postmark. There is a limit of 50 post marks or hand cancellations per person per day.
These suggestions look like a pretty good rule of thumb to me for mailing your cards to most post offices offering holiday re-mailing services. Be sure to address your packaged cards to the Postmaster, including the zip code and a request for a holiday cancellation or re-mailing. It's also best to allow at least two weeks to send your mail to the post office for re-mailing by Christmas.
I've used re-mailing services in the past for holiday mail and for re-mailing cards for Secret Pal exchanges.
Here is a list of offices offering winter holiday-themed post marks in the Midwest:
Antler, North Dakota 58711
Bethlehem, Indiana 47104
Chestnut, Illinois 62518
Faith, South Dakota 57626
Frost, MN 56033
Garland, Nebraska 68360
Holly, Michigan 48442
Hope, Indiana 47246
Hope, Kansas 67451
Hope, Michigan 48628
Hope, Minnesota 56046
Hope, North Dakota 58046
Joy, Illinois 61260
Nazareth, Michigan 49074
Noel, Missouri 64854
Partridge, Kansas 67566
Rudolph, Ohio 43462
Rudolph, Wisconsin 54475
Saint Joseph, Illinois 61873
Saint Joseph, Michigan 49085
Saint Joseph, Minnesota 56374
Saint Joseph, Missouri 64501
Saint Marys, Iowa 50241
Saint Marys, Kansas 66536
Saint Marys, Ohio 45885
Santa Claus, Indiana 47579
Shepherd, Michigan 48883
Spruce, Michigan 48762
Do you know of any other Midwestern towns offering this service?
© Dominique King 2013 All rights reserved
Wow, very detailed post - must have taken a lot of research time :)
We actually just returned from Santa Claus, Indiana and visited their famous post office. Wrote a letter to Santa too. Really awesome town - highly recommend a visit to Santa Claus!
http://www.visitflyovercountry.com/2013/12/santa-claus-in-americas-christmas.html
Posted by: plus.google.com/105827111047096335049 | December 09, 2013 at 07:32 AM