Good Old Santa’s Village

    I grew up in a magical place.
    It was a land where reindeer grazed, well maybe not wild but in pens with hay and piles of pine needles for their beds.
    There was a candy store that had every kind of candy you could ever imagine, home made ginger bread and jaw breakers that would last for hours. We would suck on them until our mouths hurt. Looking back I remember them tasting just like fake sugar. Now an adult, I have to wonder,what was so great about them?
   The best thing about this place was that Santa Clause lived there year round.
   I’m talking about Santa’s Village, the run down amusement park that sat on the outskirts of my home town.
    Santa’s Village was a victim of this economy as many local businesses are. It closed it’s doors finally in 1998. I drive by what is left of Santa’s Village, an old faded wooden sign, some plaster mushrooms, most days when I go for a drive in our mountain communities. It always makes me sad that this piece of our mountain history is no more.

   Santa’s Village opened it’s doors in 1955 a month before Disneyland would. It was a huge tourist destination, even though the park sat on only a scant 220 acres.
    When I was a kid, my Dad worked at Santa’s Village, running the antique car ride one year as a second job. It was awesome because my brothers and I got to go to Santa’s Village all year for free! We would spend hours on the bumble bee ride, which was a rickety sleigh like contraption that slowly took you on a tour high above the whole park.  The bumble bee ride was one of my favorites.
    My absolute favourite was the Bob Sled ride. I loved that rickety roller coaster. It was so old and back breaking, it would probably terrify me today.
    I loved visiting the aging reindeer in their paddock, and I would always want to go to the pony rides first of course.  My Dad was good friends with the owner of Santa’s Village and he was just as heart broken as the rest of our community when this part of our community story finally closed its doors.
    I knew this little small town amusement park so well. I can still see the puppet theater, the bakery with, still to this day, the best gingerbread I have ever had in my life. I remember wandering through the fun house maze with my friends.
   Once a year for a week the park would be open for free to mountain residence and it was always the same week as Vacation Bible School. My parents made that our treat; if the three Woodyard children behaved at Vacation Bible School we would get to go to Santa’s Village with the other kids from church in the afternoon.
   I can only remember one photograph that exits in my family to this day of my Mom and my cousin Camille on the bob sled ride. It makes me sad to think I do not have more pictures from my child hood of good old Santa’s Village.