Santa Claus is coming to town!! Santa will make his annual pre-Christmas visit to Monticello on Saturday, December 10, 2022, at the Monticello Fire Station. While Santa greets the children there and hears their wishes for Christmas, his elves are working hard to set up a special shop for the children to buy gifts for their family members. The Workshop will be open from 11:00 a.m.-1:30 p.m., for kids to shop before or after seeing Santa. Santa's Workshop can't happen without your help.

As always, Santa's elves (Monticello National Honor Society members) look to the local community for donations of small gift items that the children can "buy" for their parents and siblings and grandparents. Donations can be handled the same as in past years. If you have any new or like-new items to donate, please feel free to drop them off at Zwingli UCC, 416 E. Lake Avenue in Monticello, or during business hours at Tri-Insure at 145 N. Main Street, Monticello.

Each year people ask what they should donate. The original goal of the workshop was for kids to be able to buy gifts for their parents, grandparents and even siblings. So any small gift that you could see a child giving to their parents, grandparents, or siblings would be great! Each year we find that the quickest items off the shelves at the workshop are men's gifts. Men's gift ideas can be new decks of playing cards, hand tools, travel mugs, work gloves, flashlights, etc. Other gift ideas are holiday decorations or trinkets, unused candles, new bottles of lotion, jewelry, coffee mugs, scarves, etc. Since our elves help wrap every gift, wrapping paper, gift bags and tissue paper are also appreciated!