Canada has a real place called Christmas Island & people around the world are obsessed with it

Christmas Island sounds like a place that belongs in a fictional movie, but believe it or not, it’s actually in Nova Scotia. The small village in Cape Breton is home to about 300 residents, but every holiday season it gets its moment in the spotlight, according to CBC News.

Christmas enthusiasts around the world flood Christmas Island’s post office every year with letters, postcards, and packages so they can get the village’s special red and green postmark stamps.

The village’s post office employees are put to work between November and January, processing up to 14,000 holiday cards from places as far as Tahiti and Hong Kong, according to the outlet.

One video of a Christmas Island postal worker says they get cards from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, as well as many places in the U.S. and Europe.

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“Some days it’s really tiring when it’s busy, but we have a lot of fun doing it,” she says in the video.

The story behind the town’s unique name is somewhat of a mystery. According to CBC, two theories remain — one is that it’s named after a Mi’kmaq chief named Noël, the other is that the region was originally mapped out on Christmas Eve, thus the name Christmas Island.

Other than its important role in spreading holiday cheer during Christmastime, not much goes on in this sleepy Nova Scotia destination.

This isn’t the only city with a festive name in Canada. Reindeer Station is a place in Northwest Territories that’s apparently uninhabited (except for by reindeer, we assume). There’s also a town in Ontario called Noëlville and a place in Saskatchewan called Sled Lake.

Who knew Canada was so unintentionally festive?