(Atlanta) Amid predictions of delays and/or closings of postal and volunteer services that have traditionally answered children's letters to Santa, northpole.com provides children a quick, secure, and certain means to write Santa and get a reply.

In addition to providing an alternative to postal mail for children's letters, the Web site www.northpole.com offers a sleighload of other free activities for families to share at home this Christmas season, including original and personalized children's stories, Elf Chat, animated holiday postcards, puzzles, games, recipes, karaoke, a Christmas-only radio station, and an "elf-run" weather station that gives updated North Pole weather reports.

During November and December last year, the northpole.com web site had more than 2.25 million visitors, including 20 million page views, more than 250,000 letters to Santa, and 350,000 animated postcards sent from the site. Record-breaking numbers are expected this year, said Barb Morrison, general manager of northpole.com, based on each year's increased traffic plus national indicators that Americans are seeking more meaningful time spent with families.

Tradition and Technology
"When Jim Clutter and Neal Starkey created the site in 1996, their goal was to provide a family-oriented, traditional Christmas site for children and their families to enjoy," said Ms. Morrison. "At the same time, they wanted the site to be an entertaining showcase for what could be achieved through computer technology. They have accomplished both, combining traditional 'warm and fuzzy' feelings of goodwill at Christmas with state-of-the-art computer technology."

Tradition and high-tech computer programs? The spirit of Christmas and karaoke? The folks who create and operate northpole.com see no conflict. All interactive features on the site use advanced technology, such as animation using Macromedia Flash and conversation simulators using artificial intelligence. Yet the underlying theme is a traditional look at Christmas. "From the beginning it's been important to us that this site have the Ôtrue spirit of Christmas' and traditional family values," said Mr. Clutter. "But it must be entertaining and of high technological and artistic quality. Our site combines all these qualities, and that is what makes it stand out from other Santa sites."

Indeed, the artwork alone distinguishes this site, which is richly illustrated with hundreds of original, detailed, hand-drawn artwork. The site opens with a panoramic view of Santa's Secret Village--the fanciful home of Santa, his elves, and reindeer. Visitors click on different "rooms" to enter, leading to a variety of activities or stories. Rooms include Santa's Mailroom, Santa's Workshop, Elf Clubhouse, Santa's Reindeer Barn, Santa's Den, Mrs. Claus' Kitchen, Northpole Weather Station, Toy Shop, Gift Shop, and Festival of Trees (one of the site's charitable promotions).

Another distinguishing factor is the use of northpole.com as an educational tool, said Mr. Clutter. A number of elementary schools report using the site during their designated computer time, allowing children to send letters to Santa and at the same time learn basic skills of email and Internet navigation.

Free Activities
Letters to Santa arrive by the thousands at northpole.com each day during the holiday season. A distinguishing feature is that northpole.com offers children help in sending Web-mail letters to Santa. When children go to Santa's Mailroom, they are prompted to create a secret password to use in retrieving their answer from Santa. A couple of days after sending Santa a letter, children can retrieve a personalized, memento-quality, full Web page reply letter from Santa.

In Santa's Workshop, children can read short creative stories about elves and toys. In the Reindeer Barn, the stories are about Raymond, the playful reindeer. All stories on northpole.com are original, and many offer a gentle and upbeat lesson for children. Clicking on one of these toys at the bottom of the screen brings up an original story about the toy. In addition, clicking the crayon in the story lets children print out a black and white version of the story illustration, which they can color or paint.

Personalized, original stories await children in Santa's Den and are created by the child (or parent) answering a few short questions, such as the child's first name, hometown, and a favorite activity. These answers are woven into the story to personalize it for the child. Like the other stories, these are also illustrated with original, color artwork. Pages can be printed out as a keepsake or gift.

Visitors can retrieve recipes in Mrs. Claus' Kitchen and even submit their own for publication on the Web. More than 2,000 recipes have been submitted.

Music is a featured attraction. In the Christmas Karaoke, children choose among a number of traditional Christmas songs. While the music plays, words of the song display on the screen, and children can sing to the music or learn the words if they don't know them. The North Pole Radio station enables visitors to play a 100-song Christmas collection. These features require computers with RealAudio.

Among the site's unusual features is Elf Chat, an innovative technology using "artificial intelligence" to enable children to converse with elves "Bif" and "Bonnie." Children (or parents) type a question about Christmas, Santa, the North Pole, or the elves. Elf Chat reads the question and creates an answer. The technology is a field of study in computer science involving conversation simulators.

Clicking on "hot areas" in Santa's Den brings up lists of the top 50 best-selling Christmas books, Christmas movies and videos, and Christmas CD's. Book/movie/video lists include a synopsis of each entry, and the movie/video list has ratings.

Giving back to the community
Instead of selling advertising through the usual banner ads, northpole.com donates one million banner ads and links on its Web site to each of the following institutions: St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, Make-A-Wish Foundation® of America, The Silver Lining Foundation, and Ronald McDonald House® Charities. The site also provides schedules of Festival of Trees events in numerous cities. Events primarily benefit children's charities. By giving these organizations free advertising, northpole.com helps promote public support and knowledge of pediatric cancer research and the treatment and opportunities available to help children with life-threatening illnesses.