(Atlanta) Keep your children happily entertained throughout the upcoming holiday weeks, writing letters to Santa, playing games and puzzles, and giggling at the "Disco Dancing Santa" Ð all at www.northpole.com. This holiday Web site also offers Elf Pal Academy, original and personalized children's stories, animated holiday postcards, recipes, a Christmas-only radio station, and even a conversation simulator called Elf Chat.

Letters to Santa arrive by the thousands at northpole.com each day during the holiday season. (Last year the site had 2.25 million visitors.) 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, reply letter from Santa.

Parents searching for a child-safe Internet site that the family can enjoy will find a treasure trove in northpole.com. Each year the site increases its offerings to families. This year's additions are the Disco Dancing Santa and Elf Pal Academy. The dancing Santa, like most pages on northpole.com, can be emailed to a friend, allowing children to share a laugh with friends and relatives. The Elf Pal Academy provides a wealth of educational--but fun--activities for children. These include connect the dots, mazes, word search, concentration, an interactive coloring book, and Santa's favorite Rubik's cube.

Also new this year is the Good Deeds Calendar, a printable calendar listing daily responsibilities for children. Just print out and post the calendar in the child's room or on the refrigerator. Collect each month and then set out for Santa on Christmas Eve.

For more than six years, northpole.com has entertained children and their families with its unique combination of creativity, state-of-the-art technology, and a traditional view of Christmas. The northpole.com site 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).

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.

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.

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.

Giving back to the community Instead of selling advertising through the usual banner ads, northpole.com donates banner ads to selected charitable groups. This year northpole.com is donating 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.