Some volunteers work at sorting and answering mail.

SANTA CLAUS — Marian Balbach may be one of the busiest postmasters in the country this month.

Balbach oversees operations at the world’s only post office bearing the name of the North Pole’s most famous resident. It’s a unique honor, commemorated each year with the issuing of a special postmark which customers can apply to cards and letters themselves.

“It’s an annual thing,” said Dolores Lueken of nearby Ferdinand, as she stamped several pieces of mail. “Now my Christmas season can begin.”

Well before Thanksgiving each year, Balbach and her staff begin preparing for the holiday rush. The work schedules of her staff, as well as about a half dozen volunteer clerks from post offices throughout Spencer County, are carefully coordinated.

Balbach estimates the post office will handle nearly 5,000 letters to Santa each day throughout December, in addition to other packages and regular mail.

Many of those letters end up in the hands of Pat Koch and a team of volunteers she assembles each year to provide personalized responses. The group, known as Santa’s Elves, has been answering letters on Santa’s behalf for more than 100 years. Koch, whose husband Bill developed the town’s Christmas Lake Village where most of its residents now live, has been involved with the group since the 1940s.

“There’s a wonderful, wonderful sense of awe and belief that children have in Santa Claus,” Koch said as she looked through a stack of letters. “I just think that when they write a letter to this person, they deserve an answer. That’s what keeps me doing it — the joy that you bring, that’s so important.”

The letter answering campaign is an ambitious undertaking — Koch estimates the elves will craft about 15,000 responses this year — but a rewarding one as well.

“It’s not really a job,” said Kelly Jones, a volunteer elf and lifelong resident of Santa Claus. “You come here every day and you’re super excited about seeing and reading these letters. Some kids have so much in life and don’t realize it, and other kids, they want the simplest things. We are so fortunate, and it’s just awesome to be able to help these kids really get the spirit of Christmas and to love it like we do.”

Across town, in the Kringle Place Shopping Center, the town’s namesake sat in a small room in the Santa Claus Christmas Store and read Christmas stories to a group of children. Afterward, St. Nicholas said he’s a frequent visitor to the town bearing his name, mainly because so many children come expecting to see him.

“They know that Santa will be here,” he said. “With today’s modern technology, it makes it easy for me to do that.”

The town celebrates the season with a variety of events throughout the season.

“Everybody really gets in the spirit,” Koch said. “They’re exhausted on Dec. 26, but everybody gets in the spirit. It’s a wonderful, loving community, and I think they embody what Santa Claus is, which is the spirit of giving, love, caring for other people.”

Source: Ottumwa Courier