Christmas Post Office offering unique postmarks, stamps
CHRISTMAS — Santa Claus himself dropped by the Christmas Post Office last week. He sat in the lobby and stamped about 30 holiday cards and 10 parcels with commemorative logos featuring a waving snowman and — who else — Jolly St. Nick with the slogan “It’s Always Christmas in Christmas, Florida.”
That bespectacled, white-bearded gentleman in the red checkered shirt was Titusville resident Les Short. The retired high school teacher greeted thousands of kids working as a mall Santa for six years at shopping malls in Columbus, Ohio, but he vastly prefers Florida’s warm winters to the Buckeye State’s frigid winter wonderland.
“I’m just very fortunate that Christmas is here. My second choice is North Pole, Alaska, and I really don’t want to go up there this time of year,” Short joked, wielding a Yuletide stamper in the post office lobby.
“I’ve been there. Did get to volunteer as Santa for a day up there, which was an experience,” he said.
Every winter, people flock to the tiny Christmas Post Office to decorate envelopes and packages with “Christmas, Florida” rubber stampers for family and friends. What’s more, postal workers transport tens of thousands of these items to Orlando, where machines mark them with the collectible Christmas, Florida, postmark from ZIP code 32709.
Visitors walk up to the front counter and pick up Christmas-card boxes containing two stampers and an ink pad. However, some folks could receive lumps of coal in their stockings: Participants must now hand over keys or a driver’s license because thieves kept stealing the commemorative stampers, said Dawn King, postmaster.
The U.S. Postal Service expects to deliver 13 billion cards, letters and packages between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve, and officials expected customer drop-offs to peak on Monday, Dec. 14.
“We had both windows going full force,” King said of Christmas Post Office activity on that date last week. The facility employs two clerks.
Swap snowflakes for pine needles, and you might imagine the unusual setting of the Christmas Post Office about 16 miles west of downtown Titusville, right on State Road 50 in eastern Orange County.
The small brick building is nestled amid the forest near the “downtown” of this rural community of 1,146 residents, per 2010 U.S. Census statistics. Just to the east, Cupid Avenue and St. Nicholas Avenue are the main drags through the Christmas Park neighborhood, and nearby reindeer-inspired roads include Rudolph Street, Dasher Street and Blitzen Avenue.
Along the highway, Christmas Grocery and Christmas RV Park compete to entice motorists alongside Ray’s Airboat Rides and Brooks Brothers Alligator Farm.
The post office was established in June 1892. Inside, a bulletin board displays aging letters addressed to Santa Claus and/or Christmas, Florida, from Japan, England, France, Spain, Greece, Guam, the Philippines and the USSR.
The Postal Service also offers Christmastime cachets and pictorial postmarks in Bethlehem, Conn.; Rudolph, Wis.; Santa Claus, Ind.; Nazareth, Mich.; and other Yule-named communities.
John and Charlene Gelsinger of Orlando brought about 60 Christmas cards to Christmas for friends in New Jersey and relatives across the country. The couple stamped their envelopes with logos featuring a ribbon-tied wreath and a crossed pair of candy canes.
“We wanted to do something special for our friends and family,” Charlene Gelsinger said.
John and Susan Johnson drove about 30 cards to the post office and stamped them with Noel insignias. One depicted a decorated candlelit tree.
“We retired to Melbourne in 2013. We were going up to St. Augustine, and I saw the sign off the interstate for Christmas, Florida, last year. I said, ‘Oh, wouldn’t that be cool to have a Christmas, Florida, stamp,’” Susan Johnson said between stampings.
“It’s one of those Florida things. You get down there, the first thing you’ve got to do is get the orange juice. We’re working on a trip down to the Keys. We learned how to pronounce Melbourne,” John Johnson said.
Contact Neale at 321-242-3638, rneale@floridatoday.com or follow @RickNeale1 on Twitter
Christmas information
The Christmas Post Office is located at 23580 E. Colonial Drive (State Road 50).
Retail hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday and 9:30 a.m. to noon Saturday. Call 407-568-2941.