"You know Kidneys and Limas and Lentils and Wax Beans. Navys and Northerns Garbonzos and String Beans. But do you recall... The most famous legume of all?" That's right, boys and girls -- today the beans have the great honor of visiting none other than the town that loves Christmas year round, Santa Claus, Indiana! So hang your stockings and make your wish lists, then come along as the beans see what's up in the land of the jolliest elf there is. (And never fear -- the beans have been good little vegetables all year, so they have nothing to fear while in town. No ticked-off Saint Nick is about to drop coal in their can, that's for sure!)

Located just 7 miles south of Interstate 64 in southern Indiana, the town of Santa Claus packs away in its stocking about 2,100 residents. The town was originally founded by German immigrants in the late 1840s, and according to the local legend, got its clever moniker on Christmas Eve, 1852, when the local residents were holding a meeting to pick a town name. They talked and bickered and got nowhere, until the wind blew the doors open and the sound of sleigh bells could be heard off in the distance. Some of the little tikes yelled "It's Santa Claus!", and the name stuck. The beans thought this was a fantastic story, and are glad that the kids heard sleigh bells and not cows mooing. Otherwise, we may be welcoming you to Ground Chuck, Indiana instead.

And of course what would a town named Santa Claus be without a post office? While the post office here is usually fairly quiet, things tend to go bonkers around the holidays, what with people from all over the country sending their Christmas cards here for a custom Santa Claus hand-canceled postmark. The local postmaster expects half a million letters to come through here between mid-November and the end of December, so if you're interested in having your cards sent directly from the Big Man himself, you'd better get a-movin'. The beans would've mailed themselves home just for the cute postmark, but when traveling they prefer the comfort of a wide body jet over the back of a mail truck, so they passed. Still, it would've been cheaper, and maybe they could've broken into one of the boxes of Christmas cookies in the mailbag...

So are you curious about what could possibly be on the Christmas list of a 15 ounce can of black beans? Well, their wishes are simple, really. A rust-proof can. A water-proof label. A new atlas. A years worth of first class upgrades. Their own series on the Food Network. A spotlighted display in the Smithsonian. A date with the Radio City Rockettes. World peace. Okay, perhaps their wishes aren't that simple after all, but if you're going to dream, why not dream big?

Of course, every once in a while someone in Santa Claus ends up on the "naughty" list, and they have to send the local law-enforcement elves out to see you. (No matter what you, please don't mistake their K-9 unit for a reindeer.) While the beans have to admit that they've never actually seen a candy cane striped nightstick before, they did think that the jingle bells on the handcuffs were a nice touch.

One of the fun highlights of Santa Claus is a visit to Holiday World, a pretty cool theme park. Way back in the 1940's, Louis Koch built the world’s first theme park here in Santa Claus. Koch was big on holidays, and he wanted the kiddies who visited the town to be able to see that this was truly Santa's home. The theme park, originally named Santa Claus Land, has grown over the years, and is known today as Holiday World & Splashin’ Safari. Sounds like fun, doesn't it? Holiday World is also home to one of the top coasters anywhere -- The Raven. She's a 110 foot high, 2,800 foot wooden beauty, and tops out at over 60 MPH. The beans really wanted to hop on for a ride, but alas - it was off-season. Never more.

And because man (or vegetable) does not live on milk and cookies alone, while in Santa's backyard the beans tried to find a nice place to stop and nosh for a while. But unlike places with traditional four-basic-food-group meals, the food here in town mainly seems to all run on the sugary side. While the beans personally see nothing wrong with eating funnel cakes and cotton candy all day long (which really do go well with a side of black beans - try it some time!), in order to keep their round metal figure they're heavily ensconced on the Atkins plan, so they had to wait until they were outside the city limits and could find a low-carb bistro, instead.

And so the beans bid a fond adieu to Santa Claus, and all of his happy helpers here in Indiana. The beans had a great time, and thank everyone for their hospitality (and the occasional candy cane). As for the beans, they'll be sure to put out some spicy black bean dip for Santa and the reindeer on Christmas Eve - maybe then he'll bring them that new convertible they're always begging for...