Want to speak to Santa or hear a Christmas ditty? Call Half Price Books

It's hard not to heart this hotline.

Halfy Call-A-Days

Advertising Halfy Call-A-Days was a first-time performance for the Kazoo Crew. Will you see them again? "I bet we can ask them for an encore," said Kristen Dickson, public relations specialist.

DALLAS — Leave it to Dallas-based Half Price Books to come up with a quirky, fun holiday treat, seemingly for no reason. They've got a "retro-fun holiday hotline" where you or your little ones can call in and hear a Christmas tune, a holiday joke, or a sweet message from Santa Claus.

The number is 1-855-HPB-FONE. Warning: You'll get sucked into their cheery bookworm wonderland.

Press any number, and the recording on the other line is done by a Half Price Books employee. (That includes when you press 1 and get Santa: Yes, even Santa is a HPB employee.) Press 5 and two women from the marketing department will sing you “Auld Lang Syne.” Press 2 and two other HPB employees will read an original poem modeled after “Twas the Night Before Christmas.” The whole thing is silly, but certainly charming.

The hotline was inspired by the "Callin' Oates" website and hotline (which played Hall & Oates tunes), and by a school choir in Vermont who performed carols "on demand" on a special phone number, said Kristen Dickson, public relations specialist for HPB. "We thought offering our own hotline would be a fun way to make people smile and spread merriment in a retro-nostalgic way," she said.

Oh yes, and the "kazoo crew" (seen in the video above) is advertising the hotline. The whole campaign is called “Halfy Call-A-Days.” Say it fast.

Call back in a few weeks and Santa will do his best Ebenezer Scrooge impression.