MamaArcher's Blog

A Visit to the North Pole

Christmas in July, I have often heard of those who celebrate Christmas in July and this year our family had a little taste of that. Even though it is August now, our family was vacationing in July and I was unable to blog about this prior to now. I was without a computer all week and it was actually a really nice thing, until I came home and had to clean out my email inbox! I know I had blog entries posting here but that was all set up in advance.

OKAY! Back to Christmas in July!

On our vacation we visited North Pole, Alaska.

Here is a little history blurb from the North Pole website.

In 1944, bon Davis homesteaded this area. Dahl and Gaske Development Company later bought the Davis Homestead, subdivided it and named it North Pole. The name was selected to attract the toy industry to manufacture articles made in “North Pole”. This endeavor failed to blossom, but North Pole has continued to grow. There is continued interest to develop North Pole as a theme city, “Where the spirit of Christmas lives year round”. Many streets bear holiday names: Santa Claus Lane, Snowman Lane, Kris Kringle, Mistletoe, Holiday Rd., Saint Nicholas Drive, North Star Drive, Blitzen, and Donnor. Street lights are decorated in candy cane motifs and many buildings are painted with Christmas colors and designs. The Santa Claus house, the “official” home of Santa Claus greets all visitors who pass through the city on the Richardson Highway. Live reindeer and Santa Claus himself are available for photographs year round. Each year the community starts the holiday season with a candle lighting ceremony and tree lighting event the first Sunday in December.

We visited the Santa Claus House.  It is really a big gift shop.  You can purchase Alaska related Christmas ornaments, letters from Santa, snow in a bag, t-shirts, and other gift shoppy things.  We enjoyed looking at all of the nativity sets and the live reindeer. I think that one of my favorite parts was actually the visit with Santa. Let me explain.  We really do not do much with Santa in our home.  We focus on Christ.  We also do not shun every tradition.  I love tradition as long as it is done with purpose and it can be used to point to Christ. Back to my explanation……..

We spoke with St. Nickolas ….  the man with the beard was such a sweet man.  He noticed the Biblical names of our children and a homeschool t-shirt one of the children was wearing.  He asked one of the children which church we attended and realized that my hubby is a minister.  As he was speaking to the children about where we worship on the Lord’s Day.  He said that it was great that we go to worship.  He said ” You know Santa loves Jesus too!”  He shared with us his favorite verses!  I was so thankful to have that man there to share with my children that even he thought that Christ was Lord!

I just want to end this post with a couple of photos and with the favorite verses of the North Pole Santa…..

Philippians 2:10-11

So that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.