Charles’ 
Slide of the Week: November 23rd, 2005
Christmas Tree Inn, Christmas, AZ, 1951
Have you ever spent Christmas in Christmas? Christmas, Michigan. How about Easter in Easter, TX? Have you ever been to Santa Claus? Santa Claus, Indiana or Santa Claus, Georgia? Were you ever served Christmas dinner at this week’s slide: Christmas Tree Inn, Santa Claus, Arizona, 1951.
A bullet-nosed Studebaker with suicide doors is parked up front. Tourists pose with the patio furniture. A plywood Christmas tree is strung with lights and a Santa cutout stands on the candy cane striped roof, ready to go down the chimney. Fine food is promoted in neon.
In the late 1930’s a Mr. and Mrs. Douglas began serving lunches and dinners to tourists passing through town. To attract more customers they decorated the house for Christmas and changed the name. Dressed as Mr. and Mrs. Claus, they served up a five-course meal that included reindeer and chicken soup, Mary’s Little Lamb Chops, North Pole Salad and your choice of Stardust or Fairyland Cake for dessert. Ultimately their Christmas themed restaurant inspired the name of the town. But by the 1960s the novelty had worn off and they stopped serving.
I wonder if the house is still standing.
Here’s to you and the Christmas Tree Inn.
Charles Phoenix
Los Angeles
November 2005
Sets this Slide belongs to:
Holidays & Theme Parks
3 Comments on “Christmas Tree Inn, Christmas, AZ, 1951”
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January 3rd, 2008 at 10:27 am
Was going through my kitchen cupboard and came upon my fathers coffee cup from Christmas Tree Inn of Santa Claus, AZ. Intered it on search and came up with your web site. I just love it. Wow what memories. Thanks, Lori
July 15th, 2008 at 5:29 pm
Either me or my family traveled by but never stopped at the Douglas’ quirky bit of Americana… for over 50 years.
BUT IT ALWAYS INTRIGUED… ME.
On my way to a job in Kingman from Las Vegas, I FINALLY STOPPED LONG ENOUGH TO REALLY SCOPE OUT THE REMAINS OF THE CHARMING OLD PLACE.
I took several pictures (from the basement up to the attic)and found only the front, concrete doorstep to Cinderella’s Dollhouse.
Walking into the main house I immediately noticed the smell of dust and pigeon shit in the air. I made an attempt to filter some of it buy mostly out of concern of the “rat crap fever” that caused a big scare several years ago (hantavirus).
Moments earlier I had been at Rosie’s Den just 30 miles north of the Douglas’s Santa Claus, Arizona. I could imagine Rosie’s looking just like Santa Claus, Arizona in just a few years or one or two quick decades.
This is the hardest part about growing old for me: watching what were new and fascinating places quickly wither and die like the petals of a rose.
By the way. My customer in the Kingman County Recorder’s office TOLD ME THAT THE OWNERS OF SANTA CLAUS HAD BEEN MURDERED YEARS AGO BY SOMEONE NEVER CAUGHT. ANYBODY HEAR ANYTHING ABOUT THAT SAD STORY? MURDERS LIKE THAT SEEM TO BE A PART OF THE COLD UNDERBELLY OF ARMPIT, AMERICA. I still remember the friendly old gas station owner in Southington, Ohio THAT WAS MURDERED OVER JUST A FEW DOLLARS BY SOME RAT BASTARD DOPER THAT “EXISTED” NEARBY.
October 8th, 2008 at 11:31 pm
I can tell you a amazing story about Douglas’s Santa Claus, Arizona, I am fifty five now and at the age of 17 I was hich-hiking from Las Vegas to Michigan where I was from. I was Picked up by Mr Douglas (I don’t remember his first name) I had a $1.35 in my pocket and was almost starving. We were riding in his old truck I remember and he asked me if I wanted a job. So I asked him what kind of a job? He told me managing a gas station. I said sure and I asked him how much it payed and he told me 5 cents on every gallen of gas I sold and 10% of any thing else (used tires, these horn on a plack, bull horns I guess) and all the food I wanted. He owned the gas station and a resterant where he was the cook and he made the best grilled ham and Cheese sandwich ever. He had a young girl that worked there, about 15 yrs old (very shy I remember, but cute as a button) well the job came open because the man before me died from alcohol and to many pills. Douglas told me. I had to clean out his belongings (not much just some clothes that was piled on a cot in the back of this two room small building. I stayed for 6 weeks working for this man (a good man very nice and kind) I had a little money saved not much but it got me back to Michigan. I think often about him and that town. Not much of a town was made up of a gas station and a resterant. But the thing I remember most was when I got out of this mans truck I was blasted by (I’m dreaming of a white Christmas) piped through a pair of loud speakers. The two poles in front of the gas station and the resterant were painted up like candie canes. It was a wonderful memory that I will always remember. I believe it was 1970, I also remember a work crue that was widening the road they were the majority of his customers at the time. I could tell you stories about that place.
But most of all I remember man in the truck that probably saved my life from that Desert.
God Bless Him!