{"id":58494,"date":"2025-12-11T23:24:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:24:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58494\/"},"modified":"2025-12-11T23:24:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-11T23:24:06","slug":"dear-santa-store-on-main-street-bethlehem-delights-visitors-with-unique-handcrafted-holiday-gifts-bethelehm-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/58494\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Dear Santa’ store on Main Street Bethlehem delights visitors with unique handcrafted holiday gifts | Bethelehm Area"},"content":{"rendered":"

BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Nestled in the Christmas City is a little shop devoted to everything holly and jolly. The store, Dear Santa<\/a> not only allows visitors to shop for unique holiday gifts, but enjoy a Christmas experience.<\/p>\n

It is owned by Santa himself. Manager Karen Dodge said, “My brother-in-law has been the Christmas City Santa in this area for about seven years now and every Christmas he talked to our family about opening a Christmas store.”<\/p>\n

That dream finally came through when the perfect spot on Main Street opened up right across from Hotel Bethlehem. Dodge said, “He jumped on it.”<\/p>\n

He recruited family, like Dodge to help run it. “I was a teacher for 31 years in Maryland,” she said. “He called me up and he said would you be my manager?”<\/p>\n

The store is filled with unique handcrafted gifts, welcoming visitors from around the world.<\/p>\n

“They love saying, I was in Denmark and I saw something like this, or I had something like this when I was a little boy,” said Dodge.<\/p>\n

You can even get a piece of the North Pole. Dodge said the retired reindeer bells are their most popular gift they sell.<\/p>\n

Holding one up she said, “This is the tag that says that it was worn by Dasher and it was retired due to general wear and tear.”<\/p>\n

Just like the North Pole, there’s a workshop where kids can play with trains, a tea set, and write a letter to Santa. “There’s even a little door that leads to the elf workshop and if you listen closely, you can hear them working.”<\/p>\n

Outside of the shop sits a special reindeer with a fitting name, Boop.<\/p>\n

“His name is Boop because when people boop his nose, it brings some good luck,” said Dodge.<\/p>\n

Open year-round Dear Santa hopes to bring good luck and Christmas cheer. Dodge said, “We hope we can continue to bring joy to Bethlehem.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BETHLEHEM, Pa. – Nestled in the Christmas City is a little shop devoted to everything holly and jolly.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[214,153,155,154,1391],"class_list":{"0":"post-58494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-bethlehem","8":"tag-_homepage_top_stories","9":"tag-bethlehem","10":"tag-bethlehem-headlines","11":"tag-bethlehem-news","12":"tag-bethlehem-area"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58494","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}