 With the 77th annual CSX Santa train just days away, somebody has to get the gifts ready to be loaded onto the train. Each year in Kingsport, Tennessee, several dozen somebodies come together to do just that. The annual Santa train packing party was held Wednesday. Each year volunteers from the Tri-Cities, Tennessee area gather at Food City in Kingsport to pack up food and gifts, which will eventually be given from the Santa train. Moon pies, chips, candy, it all goes in the bags and those bags go into totes and those totes eventually get loaded onto the Santa train. And on the Saturday before Thanksgiving, those bags, more than 3,000 of them, will be given out to the large crowds that gather to see the train. Long time Santa train volunteer Don Royston remembers a time before there was a packing party. He comes out each year to visit with the other volunteers and is continually amazed by the turnout each year for the packing party. 40 years ago, thereabouts, when I started riding the train, we were still mixing the candy on the train. The boxes, the cases would come on, we'd open them and they'd throw it in and it's morphed into all of this. The community is so involved, we've got students from high schools in Virginia, from here, we've got a lot of adults of all ages and kids that are helping realize that they can have a piece of this to make Christmas happier for a lot of people in Southwest Virginia and Kentucky. Jamie Horton, an assistant manager at Food City and Kingsport, is a fixture along with Royston on the Santa train. Chief Elf, I'm the chief bum that Santa calls me. She says every aspect of the Santa train is chaotic, but is worth all the hard work. Well, I'll tell you what, it's a lot of hard work. It takes a lot of time and organizations to get it together, but I'll tell you once it's all said and done, I mean it's one of the most happiest days of my life. It means a lot to me. I learned all the ropes from Ed Moore, which was the original Santa train chairman at Food City and I kinda do it in his honor. And I enjoy giving back to the community and working with all these volunteers and making this all happen. Ted Marquis with the Education Support Nonprofit City Year helps coordinate volunteers for CSX for the Santa train. He's now a long-serving veteran of the Santa train, but still finds it difficult to calculate all the volunteer hours that go into making the Santa train a reality each year. When you come up with the math, you know, our packing party in Jacksonville is 150 people, three hours. Here you got about another 150 people working for three, another three hours. And on the train, you know, we have about 150 and 120 people on that train. They starting at four o'clock in the morning and finishing at three o'clock in the afternoon. And then all the things that go on in between, I would say it's, I can't even begin to count it all. All those volunteer hours will finally come together the Saturday before Thanksgiving when the CSX Santa train hits the high iron once again. For a full schedule of Santa train stops, visit facebook.com slash Santa train. Santa train! No, just Santa train! Yeah, we'll work on it. Reporting in Kingsport for Mountain Top News, I'm Chris Anderson.