These days, Santa's workshop isn't confined to the North Pole. It's also online.

Geezer.com, a Web site showcasing the work of more than 1,400 senior artisans, is stocked for the holidays. While the location may be high-tech, the wares look as if they tumbled from St. Nick's sack -- teddy bears and wooden toys, hobby horses and sleds, dollhouses and checkerboards, more than 14,500 different products, all handcrafted by individuals old enough to remember when toys didn't need batteries.

Take Glen Laedtke, from Rochester, Minn. The septuagenarian woodcarver sells hand-carved Victorian Santas, crafted from 150-year-old logs recovered from beneath Lake Superior. Each different, 6-inch figure is a representation of the American Santa Claus of the 1800s, created from wood harvested around the time the poem A Visit from Saint Nicholas (more commonly known as The Night Before Christmas) was first published.

"So many things are mass-produced now, so giving or receiving something unique makes it very special," Laedtke says. "It evokes a time gone by."

That's the concept behind the nonprofit Web site, says Alice Crittenden, spokeswoman for Experience Works Inc., which provides training and jobs for older workers. The organization, in partnership with the U.S. departments of labor and agriculture, developed Geezer.com two years ago to help older adults supplement their income and to promote computer literacy among seniors. Since then, more than 1,400 individuals and groups have registered to market their items.

"Across the country, there are senior carvers, tinsmiths, painters, quilters, doll and jewelry makers who are making beautiful items, and consumers who are tired of the same old stuff they find at the mall. This Web site brings them together," Crittenden says.

The site's name does raise a few eyebrows. Crittenden says Experience Works tested names on focus groups and found that Geezer.com was easily recognized and remembered. The word actually comes from Middle English and refers to a merrymaker, a lively person, she says. Laedtke says the name is more of a problem for his wife than himself.

"She doesn't think I'm a geezer," Laedtke says. "But I think it's just a catchy name that draws folks in."

Online shoppers can browse for clothing, art, books, jewelry, household accessories, decorative gifts and children's items.

Korky Vann writes for The Hartford Courant, a Tribune Publishing newspaper.