Through rain, sleet, snow and even Christmas, the Clermont Post Office delivers.
While the rest of the U.S. Postal Service only delivered Express Mail on Christmas, employees of the Clermont Post Office did their best to sort and deliver the rest of the city’s Christmas presents.

“You can pretty well recognize if there’s a package for Christmas,” said rural carrier Jim Crawford. “We make a point to deliver those.”

Dressed as his alter ego, Santa Claus, Crawford and Postmaster Regina Disharoon brought Christmas cheer right on time, when it could have come a day late.

“It’s time to look out for other folks, because Christmas is a special time of year,” Crawford said. “Whatever we can do down there to help other folks, it’s well worth it.”

Employees of the Clermont post office volunteer to deliver Christmas presents on the holiday every year, Crawford said. But this was the first time they had enlisted the help of Santa Claus.

Crawford Claus said his most memorable delivery Tuesday was to the home of Jay and Shelly Wagner, who had a package from relatives in Key West, Fla. When he arrived, however, the Wagners had one more special delivery for him to make, and so Crawford Claus hand-delivered two kittens to the Wagner’s three children, Caylee, Noah and Jaycob.

“We had gotten all of our Santa gifts, except the kittens,” said their mother, Shelly Wagner. “I didn’t know how Santa was going to leave (the kittens) here, and it worked out as absolutely perfect.”

While his new black kitten, Hot Wheels, slept on his jacket, 6-year-old Noah said it was fun to see Santa Claus on Christmas Day. Noah was able to personally thank Santa for all the gifts he brought the family, and he had a present for Santa, too.

“We gave him like three bags of cookies,” Noah said. “We made those.”

Four-year-old Caylee Wagner said she noticed a little something different about Santa when he arrived at her house. “He didn’t wear boots. He just weared shoes.”

Crawford was able to get back to his family after only two hours of sorting and delivering six gifts. But if there were more, Crawford would have been glad to deliver them.

“It’s for Christmas,” Crawford said. “Through rain, sleet or snow, we would do it anyhow.”