Sarah Palin Can See This North Pole From Her Window; or, Other North Poles, Part 1

There are a few places that claim to be the North Pole that are actually not the North Pole. I want you to send my wife to the real North Pole, which you can do by voting for her essay, but a different North Pole — a city in Alaska — would be a decent fallback destination for my her.

"Here comes Santa Claus, here comes Santa Claus,

right down Santa Claus Lane Badger Road!"

The city, whose website boasts that it's the site where the spirit of Christmas lives year 'round, is about 14 miles southeast of Fairbanks. This means that you can actually be north of the "North Pole." This geographical paradox aside, the city looks like a charming place to visit if:

1. You enjoy cities entirely based on theme
2. You enjoy cities entirely based on the theme of Christmas
3. You don't cringe when you learn the address of city hall is "125 Snowman Lane"
4. You're not looking for a mosque or synagogue or Buddhist temple

I like Christmas as much as the next guy who says "yes" to #4, but I can think of a few other theme-based locales I'd prefer to spend time, like Hershey, Pennsylvania, or PlayStation3 Island.

Who wouldn't want to dine at Taco Bell...at the NORTH POLE?

Apparently it's a big deal to send your mail up to North Pole, Alaska, in order to have it mailed with a postmark like this:

Personally — and you can cry HUMBUG if you want — I don't care for it. To make it look like Santa lives within the United States (all right, it's only Alaska, but you know what I mean) adds all the unnecessary baggage I don't like to think about when I think about Mr. Kringle:

• Does Santa pay state income tax?
• Is Santa registered to vote?
• Is Santa an undocumented alien?

According to my good friend Wikipedia, 6.7% of North Pole's residents live below the poverty line. Are these elves? What's Santa doing for them?

After thinking it over and spending more time blogging about North Pole, Alaska, than one reasonably should, I'd rather you send my wife to the real North Pole, or at least not this particular faux Pole — there are at least two others, which will be the subjects of future posts — because she would likely get so bored after about two days that she'd cut short her trip and return home.

And we can't have that.

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If this convinces you that you should send my wife to the North Pole, please click this text which is in fact a link that will take you to her essay so you can vote for her so she'll have a chance to go to the North Pole. Thank you.