Postcard from the first year of Santa's Village in Jefferson, N.H.

MORE IMPORTANTLY: This is a picture of a goat drinking from a water fountain!

This black-and-white photo postcard was mailed in September 1953, after Hope and Ed (last names unknown) took their children to Santa's Village in Jefferson, New Hampshire. The village was then in its first year of existence and is now — 63 years later — still open and going strong. Hope and Ed wrote briefly of their experience then: "Hi Joan — weather fine, food is swell. This place is just perfect for children — we stopped here today. See you soon."

These days, Santa's Village — not to be confused with Santa's Workshop — has rides called The Skyway Sleigh, Santa's Express Train, Little Elf Flying School, Poogee Penguin's Spin Out Coaster, Yule Log Flume, You Tubing¹, and Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree. There is an Elf University and a "Silly, Spooky Halloween Extravaganza" in the autumn.

Food choices include the Burger Meister Food Court, the Doe-nut Factory² and the Polar Expresso.

If it rains, the park will issue you — wait for it — a rein-check.

Santa's Village is also apparently the favorite place in the world of former pro wrestler Mick Foley.³

That's all well and good, but, most importantly, Santa's Village still has goats.



(Yes, I just embedded the goat-laden YouTube vacation video of a family I don't know. We had a short discussion regarding whether or not that was creepy, and then I decided I didn't care. Also, I used the phrase "goat-laden.")

Moving along, here's one last neat thing from this postcard. It was mailed with a 3-cent Newspaperboys stamp.

We've had a bit of a newspaper delivery theme recently here on Papergreat, what with Sunday's post about Gritboy and my continued mention of the Brian K. Vaughan comic Paper Girls, which I highly recommend if you have a hankering for a nostalgic tale in the vein of 1980s science-fiction and adventure movies.

Anyways, this cool, violet stamp was issued on October 4, 1952, in Philadelphia to honor the nation's newspaper delivery boys, in recognition of their "important service rendered their communities."

Footnotes
1. Oh, that's a bad pun.
2. Another bad pun. Also, by definition, does don't have nuts.
3. According to Wikipedia:

Mick Foley wrote in his autobiography The Hardcore Diaries that he has a Christmas fixation and that "every good thing in my life somehow leads me back to Jefferson, New Hampshire, and the trip to Santa's Village my parents took me on when I was only three years old". In his list of top ten amusement parks, Foley placed Santa's Village first, writing that "[w]hat it lacks in rides, it makes up for in personal nostalgia, a beautiful location, and the magic of Christmas in the summer".