Santa and Mrs. Claus use military transports to bring Christmas to an Alaska Native village

Associated Press

YAKUTAT, Alaska (AP) — Forget the open-air sleigh overloaded with gifts and powered by a tuckered herd of flying reindeer. Santa and Mrs. Claus this week took supersized modes of transportation to southeast Alaska, riding in a C17 military cargo plane and a camouflaged Humvee from the airport to Yakutat to deliver Christmas to children in the Tlingit village. The visit was part of this year’s Operation Santa Claus, an outreach program of the Alaska National Guard to Indigenous communities in the nation’s largest state, a program that started in 1956.