Tag Archives: Santa Claus

Fun & Free Activities for the Holiday Season

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The winter holidays are upon us (even though it’s not officially winter yet). Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Solstice/Yule, Las Posadas, Kwanzaa, or nothing at all, there are many fun and free activities you can participate in this holiday season. Communities big and small schedule lots of no-cost events during this time of year. For little more than the price of the fuel it takes to drive from one place to another, you can see pretty lights, hear choirs sing, and maybe munch down on some yummy treats. If you’re boondocking in the desert or forest, you can take advantage of the good times nature has to offer. Whether you’re single or part of a family, whether you live nomadically or stay in one spot all year long, you should be able to find a multitude of free and fun activities to keep you busy this season.

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Photo by Alain Wong on Unsplash

Go walking in a winter wonderland. Take a hike through the snow in the national forest where you’re boondocking or walk through the park in town. However you do it, bundle up and enjoy the beauty of winter. Don’t forget to stop and make snow angels or build a snowperson.

If your outdoors excursion includes other people have a friendly snowball fight.

If you’re in an area with hills, find some cardboard and go sledding.

Some areas have ponds that freeze thick enough for ice skating. If you already have skates, you may be able to hit the ice for free.

Of course, if you’re wintering in the desert, you don’t even have to bundle up to go for a walk or a hike. You will need sunblock and plenty of water though. (If this is your first winter in the desert, check out my post “10 Tips for Surviving and Thriving in the Desert.”)

Get into the spirit of the season by helping others. Volunteer at a homeless shelter, food bank, or animal refuge. Get involved with a group that cooks and serves hot meals to hungry people. Do chores for a friend or neighbor with physical limitations. Babysit for a single parent so they can go shopping or attend their holiday office party. The gift of your service may be more precious than anything you can put a bow on.

Attend the town’s tree-lighting ceremony and other free holiday events open to the public. Some towns offer free concerts featuring the town band and/or choir.

Attend a public menorah lighting. Not sure if there’s one where you are? There are thousands of events listed here. Not sure what’s going to happen at a public menorah lighting or how you should behave? Check out Menachem Posner‘s article “What to Expect at a Public Menorah Lighting.”

Attend the town’s holiday parade. Maybe you’ll see Santa there.

If you have kids who celebrate Christmas and believe in Santa Claus take them to the town’s Santa arrival event. If there’s no such event where you are, take the kids to the mall or wherever Santa is holding court so they can tell the jolly old guy their Christmas wishes. You don’t have to buy the photos.

If your kids can’t see Santa in person, have them write letters to him. If you intercept the letters before they are mailed, you won’t have to pay for stamps. You can even write a response to the letters on Santa’s behalf.

Talk to your kids about winter holiday traditions around the world. Not sure where to begin? Read this article about how children outside of the U.S.A. celebrate Christmas. Get your kids talking about how other people’s holiday traditions are different from and the same as their own. You can also talk about Las Posadas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Yule/Solstice.

Shopping centers usually have holiday activities scheduled for the entire month of December. Go to the mall to hear school or church choirs perform. While you’re there, enjoy the warmth and the decorations. No one will notice if you don’t buy anything.

Attend a live Nativity scene and/or a Christmas pageant starring the kids at a local church.

Gather your friends, kids, and other family members and go caroling together. Walk through your neighborhood, RV park, or campground singing your hearts out. If you do a little planning, you can call ahead to hospitals, senior centers, assisted care facilities, or veterans homes and ask if your group can sing for the clients. You can sing traditional Christmas carols, holiday songs from countries other than the U.S.A., Pagan songs for Yule, and winter songs that don’t mention Christmas.

Gather friends and family to make holiday decorations together. Pool supplies folks have on hand so no one has to buy anything new. Use materials from nature. String plain popcorn. Browse these easy decoration ideas from Woman’s Day.

If you decorate a holiday tree, make it a party. Put on some holiday music and serve some light snacks if you’ve got ’em. Invite friends and neighbors or limit the guest list to the people who live with you.

Don’t limit your tree decorating to what’s indoors. Decorate the trees in your yard with strands of plain popcorn and/or old decorations you won’t be heartbroken to lose if they get wet.

Turn wrapping presents into part of the holiday fun. The Spruce Crafts shows you how to use plain paper and a potato stamp to make your own wrapping paper. The Budget Diet offers “16 Ideas for Wrapping Presents Without Wrapping Paper.” If you have room, invite friends over for a wrapping party. If you have kids, get them in on the gift-wrapping action. When I was a kid, I enjoyed helping Mom wrap Christmas gifts and getting a sneak peak at the presents my sibling would be receiving.

Photo by Debby Hudson on Unsplash

Read your favorite Christmas stories aloud. Let everyone have a turn. Find books that even the littlest readers can read from. Classics include the novella A Christmas Carol, the poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (also known as “The Night Before Christmas”), and the picture book How the Grinch Stole Christmas! My favorites include the short story “A Gift of the Magi,” the young adult novel The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, and the Louisiana holiday tradition Cajun Night Before Christmas®.

Listen to a holiday podcast. I totally enjoy the Christmas themed episodes of Stuff You Should Know and Stuff You Missed in History Class from years past. If you need suggestions about Christmas podcasts to listen too, read “Top 15 Christmas Podcasts You Must Follow in 2019.” If you’re celebrating Hanukkah (or just want to learn more about the holiday), see “8 Podcast Episodes for Hanukkah” by Eric Silver. You can also listen to the Kwanzaa Central Podcast.

Photo by John Cutting on Unsplash

Host a winter movie marathon. Watch holiday classics (ones you already own or those you can find on YouTube or a subscription service you’re already paying for) from TV like Frosty the Snowman, Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Benji’s Very Own Christmas Story, and A Charlie Brown Christmas. There are dozens of holiday movies available, some marketed to adults like A Very Harold & Kumar 3D Christmas and some for kids like The Muppet Christmas Carol. My two favorite Christmas movies are naughty (Bad Santa) and nice (Elf). The Man’s favorite Christmas story is A Christmas Story.

Put on some holiday music and have a holiday dance party. Check out FlourishAnyway’s “126 Non-Religious Christmas Songs for Your Holiday Playlist.” Melissa Locker and Adam Schubak list “34 of the Best, Wackiest, and Weirdest Christmas Songs” for Elle magazine. Taylor Weatherby and Emina Lukarcanin compiled “23 Of the Most Unconventional Christmas Songs” for Billboard. Christmas wasn’t Christmas at my childhood home until we listened to the Elvis Blue Christmas cassette tape.

Need other ideas for holiday theme parties? Check out the Reader’s Digest article “12 Fun Christmas Party Themes You Never Thought of Until Now” by Ashley Lewis. While this list was written with Christmas in mind, you can change what you need to in order to make your party accessible to all your guests.

Photo by freestocks.org on Unsplash

Perhaps you want to play a gift exchange game as part of a holiday party. Tell participants not to buy anything new. Part of the fun is giving away something you already have at home (whether “home” is a conventional structure, apartment, van, motorhome, camper, or car). If you need some suggestions about what games to play, check out this list of “18 Fun Gift Exchange Games & Ideas.”

If you’re having a holiday party, you might want to serve refreshments. Maybe you want to give yummies as presents. Keep it simple and stay within your budget by serving pretzels or popcorn and hot cocoa at your party. Whip up a batch of “Easy Homemade Hot Chocolate Mix” (which is less expensive than store bought) courtesy of the Eating on a Dime blog. If you want to make more extravagant treats, check out these “55 Budget-Friendly Dessert Recipes” from Taste of Home. Author Caroline Stanko says, “[e]ach recipe is made with 6 ingredients or less, and you probably already have them in your pantry!”

Photo by Ben White on Unsplash

If you do observe a Christian religion or if you want get in touch with the religion of your childhood, attend a midnight church service. There’s something really special about celebrating the true meaning of Christmas, hearing the choir sing, then spilling out into the still, cold night.

What free and cheap ways do you celebrate winter and the winter holidays? What are some of your favorite holiday traditions? If you live nomadically, how do the winter holidays differ from when you celebrated them in a conventional home? Please share your experiences in the comments section below.

Please use caution when participating in winter activities. Ice and snow can be slippery and dangerous. Crafting can cut you. Blaize Sun is not responsible for your safety and well-being. Only you are responsible for your safety and well-being.

You Gotta Pay Santa Claus

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christmas, christmas tree, decorationEarlier this year I borrowed a video called What Would Jesus Buy? from the public library. It starred Reverend Billy and the Stop Shopping Choir, and I got The Man to watch it with me one night after the sun went down.

The movie documents Billy and the Choir’s cross-country road trip during the two weeks prior to Christmas to spread the message of the Church of Stop Shopping. They knew people wouldn’t totally stop shopping, especially not right before Christmas, but they hoped consumers would do some thinking before buying. In addition to the documentary’s titular question of (What would Jesus buy?) there are other questions the Church of Stop Shopping would like consumers to ask before making a purchase. Questions include the following:

Can I afford this?

Do I (or my loved one) need this?

Where was this made?

Can I make my purchase at a locally owned business instead of at a big box store?

blur, bright, candyOne thing I learned watching this documentary is that many adults do everything possible to create the illusion that Santa Claus brings Christmas with no effort or monetary output on the part of the parents. In these families, children grow up believing Santa does all the work involved in making the holiday happen in exchange for a few cookies and a glass of lukewarm milk. This is not an illusion my parents felt it necessary to create.

As a small child, my mother taught me the harsh monetary reality of Christmas. I don’t remember exactly how young I was, but young enough that I couldn’t yet read. The lesson happened shortly after Christmas when I talking about all the presents I’d recently received from Santa. I told my mom it sure was great that Santa dropped off all those toys for free.

Oh no, my mother said while shaking her head. Those presents weren’t free. She went on to tell me that she and my dad had to pay Santa for all the presents he put under our tree on Christmas Eve. She went over to the shelf which held the family checkbook, stamps, pens, invoices for bills to be paid, and checks written but not yet mailed. She rumaged around in the stack of checks written but not sent and selected one to pull out of the pile.

She showed me the check. This is the check I had to write to Santa Claus to pay for the Christmas presents, she told me. box, celebrate, celebration

I’m sure my eyes got big. Santa Claus had to be paid? Of course, I couldn’t read the name on the “pay to the order of ” line, but this was decades before I realized my mother is a habitual and casual liar. If she said the check was for Santa Claus, I believed her.

Some would say it was a harsh lesson, but I think it was a valuable one. Even little kids can begin to learn there’s no free lunch, not even at Christmas time.

Images courtesy of https://www.pexels.com/photo/blur-bright-candy-celebration-260470/, https://www.pexels.com/photo/christmas-xmas-christmas-tree-decoration-17795/, and https://www.pexels.com/photo/box-celebrate-celebration-christmas-264988/.

Santa Claus, AZ

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I’d passed Santa Claus, Arizona three times and didn’t even realize it was there.

It wasn’t until I looked at an Arizona road map, searching for a spot to spend a night on a trip between Las Vegas and Phoenix, that I saw the unusual place name. A town named Santa Claus? I wondered. In Arizona? What the hell?

Turns out there’s not much of a town there. As an Atlas Obscura article says, it’s really just a “Saint Nicholas-themed ghost town in the Mojave.”

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This photo shows the remains of Santa’s Land Office, but unfortunately, the jolly old elf’s face is gone, and he’s only identifiable by a bit of remaining beard.

According to Wikipedia, it all started in the 1930s when

Nina Talbot[8] and her husband moved from Los Angeles, California, to Kingman, Arizona, to operate a motel[5]In 1937, she opened the town of Santa Claus approximately 14 miles (23 km) northwest of img_7878Kingman.[3][5] Her plans for the town included subdividing the 80-acre (32 ha) site into lots that would form a resort town centered on a Santa theme…[5][9] Talbot built a series of buildings using a North Pole, Santa’s workshop theme as part of the Santa Claus…attraction.[9] The attraction was designed to promote the sales of surrounding, subdivided land.[9]

The aforementioned Atlas Obscura article says the town

featured several Christmas-themed buildings and visiting children could meet Santa Claus at any day of the year.

The town did in fact become a popular tourist destination, however no one ever bought land there…Failing to see how she would make her real estate profits, and with the town in decline, Talbot sold Santa Claus in 1949, having failed in her attempt to convince people to move to the desert.img_7888

The town of Santa Claus sounded worthy of a visit, even if the town is now of the ghost variety. I decided I would stop by on my way to Phoenix. I wasn’t expecting much, and I wasn’t disappointed.

There’s no exit for a town called Santa Claus, no sign announcing the place. I only knew what dilapidated building were the remains of the town because I’d gleaned the location from the Roadside America website: Between mile markers 57 and 58, on the west side of Highway 93.

When I got to mile marker 56, I started looking. When I got to mile marker 57, I began to pay close attention. Then I saw some rundown shacks on the side of the highway. There was also a wide gravel parking area just off the shoulder of the road. I slowed the van and pulled into the gravel. Beyond the parking area was a fence topped with barbed wire and adorned with a faded sign ordering “no trespassing.”

img_7882I stayed on my side of the fence and took photos of the one pole still decorated with green and red Christmas swirls, the deteriorating wishing well, the rotting buildings, the graffiti emblazoned over it all. Apparently, there was once a little train (the “Old 1225”) on the property too, but it’s gone now. You can see photos of it and the face of Santa now missing from the land office sign on the Atlas Obscura page about the town, which says,

by the 1970s, [the town] had already begun to fall into disrepair…The last gift shops and amusements went out of business in 1995…

The Wikipedia article about the town of Santa Claus says,

In 2003, the population of Santa Claus was 10, divided among five houses, one of which had a buffalo.[14] By 2004, the town had become difficult to locate…as of 2005, all U.S. mail addressed to Santa Claus is sent to Santa Claus, Indiana.[15]

Well Virginia, I guess there’s not a Santa Clause, at least not in Arizona. img_7879

The good news is that Santa Clause, AZ is for sale. Four acres can be had, and the owners are considering all offers. The bad news? I’m not sure any of those buildings can be salvaged, which means if you buy Santa Claus, all you’re really getting is a parcel of land with a cool name.

I took all of the photos in this post. To see really stunning photos of the remains of Santa Claus, AZ, see the December 2013 article from the Daily Mail titled “Walking in a desert wonderland: Haunting photos of an abandoned Arizona Christmas theme park portray a once popular tourist spot after decades of decline in the Mojave heat.”

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