Santa Claus ain’t comin’ to this town. (Santa Land has closed.)

As a baby boomer, I grew up in the Golden Age of kiddie attractions. In addition to all the hold-over amusement parks from the pre-war era, there were any number of hastily thrown up miniature golf course, drive-in theaters, and “Something-or-other” Lands. (Of course, Disney Land also opened when I was a kid, but that was in another whole category by itself. We mere mortal children could only aspire to a trip there.)

Crummy amusement parks were everywhere. The big two in the Worcester area were White City in Shrewsbury and Whalom Park in Fitchburg. Our family’s big annual thrill was our day-trip to Nantasket Beach, where you got not only the ocean, but also LeHage’s salt-water taffy (“Oh, so good!”) and Paragon Park. These places are long-gone. All that’s left is Paragon Park’s carousel. (At least it was still there last time I looked.) Even the beach at Nantasket is eroding into nothingness.

(The first time I went to Canobie Lake Park in New Hampshire, I was amazed by how clean it was. Nothing like the amusement parks I grew up with.)

In addition to amusement parks, there were tatty mini-golf places.

We had one within walking distance of our house. It was altogether unimaginative and, as we used to say, crum-bum. Still, it was great fun to aim that colored ball at the mouth of the whale, and tote up your score with the little golf pencil. Nothing like the fancy-arse mini-golfs we “play” every summer on the Cape. (My favorite is the one with the koi pond.)

Last summer, while visiting my brother and his wife, we went to a retro mini-golf course in Long Beach, Washington. Talk about the way-back machine! Here’s one of the swell holes. Yabba-dabba-doo!

And then there were the other types of attractions which were, for want of a better term, “theme parks” called Story Land, or Dry Gulch Ghost Town, or Fairy Tale Land. That most of these attractions were tawdry, rundown, and seedy mattered not. Just because someone had found themselves in possession of a dusty one-acre lot and five-hundred bucks and decided to throw up a bunch of painted plywood something-or-others and charge admission didn’t mean it wouldn’t have  incredible appeal to kids.

Sure, we also went to “real” places like Old Sturbridge Village, and The Old Manse, and The Old Grist Mill – ah, the benefits of living in Ye Olde New England – but, while interesting, these places were just a tad too educational. One of the best places we ever went was on a trip to Chicago. While staying at my grandmother’s house on a lake (i.e., glorified muck pond) about 50 miles out of the city, we (the combined Rogers and Dineen tribes) went to some run down Western ghost town attraction which I don’t recall was much more than a single dusty street with a bunch of abandoned “buildings” – e.g., the saloon with the swinging doors – some of which were just facades. We did not question for one New York Chicago minute what a Western ghost town might be doing outside of Waukegan, Illinois. All we knew was that, like Rin-Tin-Tin, The Lone Ranger, and Range Rider, it was made for kids. We loved it.

With fond memories of these sorts of places, I was saddened to read that Santa’s Land of Putney, Vermont, had shuttered its doors last Saturday, after 54 years in business.

Talk about a lump of coal in the stocking of life!

I had never been to Santa’s Land (which, amusingly – to me at least, as my husband was born in Bellows Falls – is located on the Bellows Falls Road).

The one and only family day trip we ever made to Vermont we did something edifying and Ethan Allen-ish around Bennington. (Other than our semi-annual trips to Chicago, we seldom ventured out of state. Taking a ride that strayed into Connecticut or Rhode Island was a big thrill, with all of us back-seaters thrusting our feet under the front seat to be able to “call” that we were the first one who’d crossed the state line.)

It’s certainly no wonder why today’s kids turn up their noses at the simple things that so delighted us in yesteryear.

They’ve all been to Disney World, Busch Gardens, Universal Studios.

They’ve seen Toy Story 1. And 2. And 3.

They’ve played with Wii’s and read Harry Potter on their Kindles.

And they’re going to be interested in something like Santa’s Land?

Fraid not.

As one employee explained it:

Chris Harlow used to work here as a boy in the early 1970s and later operated the train, Santa’s Land Express.

“I came here for the nostalgia,” he said. “Kids have other ways to entertain themselves these days.”

No matter that they lowered their admissions price to $10. No matter that they had a Facebook presence. No matter that this looked a lot nicer and cleaner (albeit more commercial, i.e., some junk for sale in most of the attractions) than the lands of my youth. (We never saw anything as sturdy and cool as Santa’s igloo.)

Santa Claus will not be coming to this town anymore.

Talk about a Grinch story.