BERNARDSTON — Children wondering how to get their Christmas wish lists to Santa need look no farther than Cushman Park this year, with the recent installation of a new Santa mailbox.
On Dec. 2, the Bernardston Kiwanis Club installed a bright red mailbox with “SANTA” painted in black and white letters alongside the town Christmas tree, hoping to attract families to the park.
“We were talking about ways to get people to the park and about the Christmas tree lighting,” said Tom Mann, a member of the Bernardston Kiwanis Club’s board of directors. Having seen that the New York City branch of Macy’s has a similar mailbox, Mann felt inspired to bring the idea to Bernardston.
Mann said his goal is for Santa and his elves, with help from Mann and other club members, to send handwritten, personalized responses — “with maybe a cookie smudge” on the paper, too — back to any letter that has a name and address on it.
“One of the benefits of living in a smaller community is you can do things like this and on such a personalized basis,” he said. “It adds to the charm of a small town, and it gets people out to enjoy the park.”
“I think it’s wonderful,” said Bernardston resident Maureen Shaw, whose daughter, Abby, used the mailbox Friday to send off a letter to Santa. “We were just wondering where we were going to put our letters. Now we have a direct link to Santa.”
Shaw said she and her daughter usually use a traditional mailbox to send letters to Santa, or bring them to him directly when they visit at the mall. Abby Shaw liked the “fancy” new mailbox, and made sure Santa would be able to respond, adding “in the solar system, in the Milky Way, in the universe” to her address.
Mann said the mailbox will stay in the park until the week after Christmas. Going forward, he expects the Bernardston Kiwanis Club will put it up every winter.