Food Inspection Report
Indiana has its own Holiday Tunes
- “Indiana Christmas” by Straight No Chaser: This popular song beautifully describes longing for home, focusing on the feeling of Christmas being “real” in Indiana, with lyrics about sycamores and winter nights.
- “Christmas in Indiana” by Reggie Smith/Ernie Haase & Signature Sound: These gospel tracks evoke nostalgic, homey feelings associated with the state during Christmas.
- “Joey’s Christmas Song from Heaven” (written by Joey Martin Feek): Though performed by her daughter Indiana after Joey’s passing, this song reflects deep personal connection to home and Christmas in Indiana, as performed at the Grand Ole Opry.
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Gov. Braun Invites Hoosier Families to Celebrate Christmas with Indiana’s State Agencies
| Governor Braun reminds Hoosiers of holiday events, lights and family traditions to enjoy the week of Christmas.
INDIANAPOLIS – With Christmas just days away and many Hooiser students out of school for holiday break, Governor Mike Braun is reminding families of festive, family-friendly Christmas activities happening across Indiana this week. Indiana’s state agencies and partners are offering affordable ways for families to celebrate the season and spend time together, including through holiday light displays and seasonal programs at state parks, museums, and historic sites.
Here are some of the light displays, winter activities and holiday programs happening around the state, listed alphabetically by agency, as well as links to where families can find more events hosted by each agency in their area: |
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Department of Natural Resources (DNR)
The DNR announced light displays at a number of its parks, including but not limited to:
Other fun activities include:
Details about these activities and more at calendar.dnr.IN.gov.
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Indiana Destination Development Corporation (Visit Indiana)
The Indiana Destination Development Corporation has launched its statewide holiday campaign on its website to help families find local:
Explore activities at VisitIndiana.com/holiday. |
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Indiana State Fairgrounds
The Indiana State Fairgrounds has the Christmas Nights of Lights. This is a drive-through holiday light show open nightly Nov. 7 – Dec. 31.
Learn more at IndianaStateFairgrounds.com. |
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Indiana State Museum
The Indiana State Museum’s Celebration Crossing is open daily from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. until Jan. 4. Activities include:
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White River State Park
Holiday events at White River State Park in downtown Indianapolis include:
Details about these activities and more are available at whiteriverstatepark.org/events/. |
EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT
FOOTNOTE: EPD DAILY ACTIVITY REPORT information was provided by the EPD and posted by the City-County-County Observer without opinion, bias, or editing.
The Story of Santa Claus, Indiana
Posted on November 15, 2018
Santa Claus, Indiana, is a small town with a big story – a Christmas Story. Visitors are curious and often ask questions that hit the heart of the tale:
How did this town get its name?
The answer to this question is the starting point to understand how a small farming settlement of German immigrants grew to attract national attention and visitors from all over the world. The town, originally known as Sante Fee, was large enough to apply for a post office in the 1850s. Their application was rejected, as there was already a town by the name of Santa Fe further north in Indiana. So now what?
The Legend
According to local legend, it was a cold December night in this small, rural area. The townsfolk were gathered in a small log church on Christmas Eve discussing a new name for their town. Several names were tossed around but nothing seemed to be the right fit. Children were running around playing while the adults were deep in discussion. Suddenly, a gust of wind blew open the church doors and the sound of sleigh bells drifted inside. The children ran to the door and shouted, “Santa Claus! Santa Claus!” The decision of what to name the town became clear. The name was accepted by the United States Post Office Department. The Santa Claus, Indiana, Post Office was established on May 21, 1856.
In The Beginning
It was in 1914 when James Martin, the town’s 14th postmaster, began mailing response letters from Santa, at his own expense, to children who mailed their Christmas wishes to Santa Claus, Indiana. Public interest took off when Robert Ripley of the ‘Believe It or Not’ featured the town’s post office and postmaster Martin, in 1930. Mail continued to arrive in massive numbers.
It Takes a Village
The world’s first themed attraction, Santa’s Candy Castle, was dedicated in 1935. This castle was sponsored by Curtiss Candy Company, the inventors of Baby Ruth and Butterfinger candy bars. Also in 1935, entrepreneur Carl Barrett built the 22-foot Santa Claus Statue and the Santa Claus Park, which is now the location of the Santa Claus Museum & Village. Santa Claus Land opened on August 3, 1946, becoming the first themed amusement park in the world. Visitors would not find roller coasters on day one. Instead, there was a miniature circus, the House of Dolls, a restaurant, and of course, Santa Claus! In 1984, Santa Claus Land became Holiday World, when themed sections like Halloween and Fourth of July were added. And in 1993, the waterpark opened. Today, Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari is open from May to October and welcomes visitors from near and far. Impressed yet? There’s more… Did you know Ronald Reagan stopped by the park in March 1955? And in that same year, Disneyland opened. So that means, Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari was the very first themed amusement park in the world – even before Disney – and it all started right here, in Santa Claus, Indiana! 
America’s Christmas Hometown
Fast forward to present day, Santa Claus, Indiana, is home to many Christmas-themed businesses. Attractions include the Santa Claus Christmas Store, Evergreen Boutique & Christmas Shop, the Santa Claus Museum & Village, Santa’s Candy Castle, and more! Many people flock to this area for the Santa Claus Christmas Celebration, which takes place the first three weekends in December. During the summer and fall, families enjoy trail rides on horseback at Santa’s Stables, movie nights at the Holiday Drive-In, and tons of fun during Fall-O-Weekends. If you are wishing to bring a little magic into your family’s holiday season, visit Santa Claus, Indiana. America’s Christmas Hometown is a perfect backdrop for your family memories.
Direct appeal: Interfaith coalition meets with governor’s staff to discuss death penalty
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One day after the year anniversary of Joseph Corcoran’s execution, Indianapolis First Friends Quaker Meeting and Shalom Zone were able to meet with Gov. Mike Braun’s staff to discuss ending capital punishment in Indiana.
Three days after delivering their letters, First Friends and Shalom Zone met with Molly Craft, the governor’s deputy chief of staff for communications, to discuss ending capital punishment in Indiana. The interfaith coalition met with Molly Craft, the governor’s deputy chief of staff for communications, on Dec. 19. According to First Friends, the discussion centered on ways to connect with state senators and representatives to get support for a moratorium on the death penalty and then establish a study commission so lawmakers can have time to review and “better understand the statistics, facts and other realities” about capital punishment.
The meeting came almost one year after Corcoran was put to death on Dec. 18, 2024, and less than a week after the interfaith coalition had delivered a stack of letters to Braun’s office, calling on the governor to end the death penalty. Corcoran’s execution was the first in Indiana in 15 years and was followed by the executions of Benjamin Ritchie in May 2025 and Roy Lee Ward in October 2025.
Jodie English (far right) joined the interfaith coalition in delivering letters opposing the death penalty to Gov. Mike Braun’s office on Dec. 16. First Friends had appealed to then-Gov. Eric Holcomb in October of last year to cease capital punishment. The Quakers then filed an open records request for information about the drugs being used in the lethal injection and eventually sought a ruling from the Indiana public access counselor. Then, encouraged by Braun’s public comments that he was open to a discussion on the death penalty, First Friends and Shalom Zone, an interfaith group, arrived at his office on Dec. 16, with the letters and were able to elicit a promise for a meeting with the governor’s staff.
Jodie English, an attorney who has spent her career defending individuals facing the death penalty, has led the effort by First Friends and was optimistic following the Dec. 19 conversation with Craft.
Prior to delivering letters opposing the death penalty to Gov. Mike Braun’s office on Dec. 16, an interfaith coalition gathered in the Statehouse and displayed some signs calling for an end to executions. “She’s a great listener, and she’s thoughtful, and she was certainly sympathetic,” English said of Craft. “Of course, she doesn’t speak for the governor, but she had some ideas that we hadn’t thought of.”
A key idea was to testify before a legislative committee even if the death penalty bill on the agenda might not be one the group supported. Rep. Robert Morris, R-Fort Wayne, is expected to reintroduce his bill calling for a repeal of the death penalty, but other bills would expand the methods of execution available to include firing squads and nitrogen hypoxia if the drug cocktail for lethal injection is not available.
English said county prosecutors are reluctant to remove the capital punishment statute because they can use it as a tool to pressure the accused and to respond to public outrage over heinous crimes. However, she continued, death penalty cases are complicated and expensive.
“They can use their tool and get a death sentence (for a) defendant, and the odds of reversal or post-conviction relief or capital habeas relief are huge because it’s such a complicated area of the law,” English said.
The governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
This article was published by TheStatehouseFile.com through a partnership with The Indiana Citizen, a nonpartisan, nonprofit platform dedicated to increasing the number of informed, engaged Hoosier citizens.
Important Changes to SNAP Benefits Starting January 1
Indiana is launching Smart SNAP, a new initiative to promote healthier food choices. Beginning January 1, 2026, sugary drinks and candy will no longer be eligible for purchase with SNAP benefits. This change is part of Governor Braun’s Make Indiana Healthy Again initiative. Learn more about what this means for you by visiting the Smart SNAP webpage.
Indiana leaders offer glimpse into plans for compressed legislative session
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Indiana’s top legislative leaders on Thursday sketched out a restrained agenda—including tweaks to a contentious property tax law—ahead of an unusually short Statehouse session that is also expected to feature movement on health care, child care and utilities.
The Indiana General Assembly is scheduled to reconvene Jan. 5 for a breakneck eight-week session.
Lawmakers can meet until mid-March during a non-budget year but plan to adjourn early to offset the two weeks they spent this month on a failed partisan redistricting proposal.
“We’ve adjusted the calendar,” House Speaker Todd Huston, R-Fishers, said. “We will finish before the end of February … and people are going to have early March off to watch basketball.”
He and other key lawmakers spoke Thursday at the annual Dentons Legislative Conference, held at the Indiana Convention Center in downtown Indianapolis.
The compressed schedule will present “the No. 1 limiting factor this session,” said Sen. Mike Crider, R-Greenfield. Crider, a Senate committee chair, said the panels may only have time for one hearing each.
Bills that don’t get committee votes won’t advance further in the legislative process.
Crider appeared in place of the Senate’s absent GOP leader, President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray.
The Martinsville senator has faced heavy criticism from fellow Republicans over the maps’ defeat.
Bray “had a longstanding in-district commitment that was on his calendar before he was even invited to Denton’s, so he wasn’t able to participate this year,” spokeswoman Molly Swigart said.
House Minority Leader Phil GiaQuinta, D-Fort Wayne, encouraged lawmakers to be “very careful” crafting their bills amid the time pressures.
“I felt like Senate Enrolled Act 1 was done very quickly … and we’re seeing that there are problems with that,” he told reporters, referring to a behemoth local government finance law approved in April.
“I do think that if you rush through legislation, you end up making some harmful mistakes, and so we’ve got to be very careful about that,” GiaQuinta added.
Edits are expected on the local government finance law, which offers Hoosiers property tax relief while expanding income taxing potential. But schools, libraries and other units are still set to lose out on millions of dollars they would have otherwise collected.
Some communities “are just concerned about how they’re going to make that difference up,” said Sen. Travis Holdman, the Senate’s tax policy head. “We need some time to talk about that.”
“I’ve been a proponent of pushing some of these dates out a little further on the timeline, just to give us some more time to figure some things out,” added Holdman, R-Markle.
He and others are also “looking really hard” at the amounts that could be gained via local income tax.
Controlling costs
Social safety net scrutiny could continue, despite a rosier revenue forecast unveiled Thursday.
This year’s Senate Bill 1—the number reserved for the majority caucus’ top priority—“will look at aligning Indiana statutes with what passed at the federal level,” Crider said, including changes to work requirements for Medicaid and the anti-hunger Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program.
Indiana enrollment in Medicaid, the low-income health care program, has dropped by about 300,000 people throughout the year, totaling 1.7 million in November, according to the forecast.
That hasn’t halted spending worries.
“We have people in the program that need to be off. … We couldn’t take folks off the program during the COVID years,” Holdman said. “I think we’ll get there. But at the current rate, it’s just not sustainable.”
Indiana already conducted a year-long “unwinding” process post-COVID.
Huston, the House’s GOP leader, predicted an otherwise “quieter” 2026 session for health care.
“We’ve done a lot. I think this session we probably need to let some stuff bake,” he said. “… Let’s see how it works and get some of the data back that we’ve requested.”
But the 2027 session “will be all about health care,” as the General Assembly grapples with federal changes that shift Medicaid costs onto states.
During a lunchtime fireside chat, Indiana Gov. Mike Braun reiterated that cutting health care costs for patients is his top priority but didn’t offer specific policy proposals. He didn’t take reporter questions.
Legislation to support hard-hit child care providers and parents is also expected.
Rep. Dave Heine, R-Fort Wayne, discussed plans to use the education scholarship model on child care.
“What we’re going to do is establish a public-private partnership, and we’re going to use the same format, the same structure,” he said. People or groups would give money to a scholarship granting organization and specify that it be used to support those who can’t afford child care.
The state closed enrollment in the Child Care Development Fund voucher program a year ago and won’t reopen to other low-income children until at least the end of 2026. A waitlist is growing.
Providers say the waitlist has crushed enrollment—particularly in infant and toddler rooms, since would-be voucher-holders weren’t yet born when the waitlist was implemented—while lower state reimbursement rates don’t cover costs for kids who do have vouchers.
Low-income parents often can’t access vouchers, while full-price-payers are still seeing providers close.
“I think we have a child care crisis right now. I mean, I’ve seen these centers closing,” said GiaQuinta, the House’s Democratic leader.
He and Senate Minority Leader Shelli Yoder, D-Bloomington, indicated their caucuses will also file child care affordability bills.
Widespread outcry over rising utility bills is expected to prompt action, too.
House Republicans will consider performance-based ratemaking, while their Democratic counterparts seek to eliminate the 7% sales tax on utility service.
In the Senate, Yoder’s caucus wants to bar utilities from charging ratepayers for lobbying, litigation and more, and ban summertime shutoffs to low-income customers.
Lawmakers throughout the conference expressed excitement about the Chicago Bears’ interest in northwest Indiana but were noncommittal on the state’s role in luring the franchise.
This article was published by TheStatehouseFile.com through a partnership with Free Press Indiana, a nonprofit organization with a mission to fill information gaps in the state.