A few weeks ago, I sat in Starbucks drinking my first eggnog latte of the season. For me, every Christmas season seems to start with the release of perfectly packaged beverages and the presentation of beautifully themed and decorated displays at Chapters. But as December approaches, I can’t help but search for the spirit behind the spectacle. Just like Charlie Brown, I want to know what Christmas is all about. And who better to ask than Santa Claus?
Charlie Brown, you need involvement!
My search for Santa started here in Victoria with the elusive mall Santa as my target. Perhaps the man behind the beard could help me out.
Victoria-based musician Hank Angel was employed as your typical mall Santa for two years at Tillicum Mall. His Christmas career began a few years prior when he volunteered at an elementary school in Edmonton where his sister was employed.
“She asked me to do it because whenever they used one of the staff at the school, the kids would always guess who it was,” says Angel. The kids failed to guess Angel’s identity, but not for lack of trying. “I remember this one girl, she was like 14 going on 19,” says Angel, “she walked up to me and looked me in the eye and said, ‘If you tell me who you are, I’ll let you kiss me.’ That’s the only moment I lost my composure. I had never been propositioned by a 14-year-old.” Undeterred, Angel applied for the position at Tillicum Mall.
There is more than one type of Santa here in Victoria. The Downtown Victoria Business Association (DVBA) hires a Father Christmas every holiday season. He and Mother Christmas wander downtown giving out candy canes, posing for pictures, and spreading holiday cheer. Shawn Fehr, a local insurance broker, was hired as Father Christmas last year.
Fehr met Dianne Kanstrup, DVBA’s holiday organizer, through the Program for Academic and Creative Enrichment (PACE) at School District 62. “I’ve been quite involved in the PACE family for a number of years now,” says Fehr, the father of two girls. “Dianne just said she needed somebody, so I said, ‘Sure, what the heck, I’ll give it a try.’”
The big red suit has its perks and quirks, according to Fehr. “It’s a really unique experience,” he says. “The way the costume works is nobody can tell who you are. It can be completely anonymous.”
That can certainly help with stage fright. But the outfit can also be incredibly laborious, according to Angel.
“It was incredibly hot and incredibly itchy,” he says. “When you see Santa and he’s laughing and waving and smiling, they really should give him an Academy Award.”
Angel describes the suit as a one-man oven. “You’re wearing a red velvet suit with a pillow tucked into your pants,” he says, “so the heat has nowhere to go but up to your collar, but your collar is covered up with fur, and overtop of the fur is this big white beard. And then you have your own hair, a wig on top of that, and on top of that the velvet hat with fur trim. You’re cooking, basically.”
Fehr, having the benefit of walking outside, didn’t comment on the heat of the suit but did agree on the costume having difficulties. “We’ve certainly been offered free hot chocolates,” says Fehr, “but it’s really hard to eat with the beard on.” Unless he can get a treat to go, Fehr says he has to decline. It turns out milk and cookies are only available for certain Santas.
It’s a wonderful life, says Santa
On the whole, playing Santa seems to be a positive experience. “Most of the time you’re running into visitors or tourists,” says Fehr. “They get so excited and it’s really neat to be able to make people’s days. I smile and give them a candy cane and they’re just so excited to have the experience.”
It wasn’t just the children who lit up to see Father and Mother Christmas. “There’s a lot of Japanese tourists that come to town and they just love it,” says Fehr. Even university students are still chasing after Santa Claus. Literally. “Last year,” remembers Fehr, “we had a group of students that ran two or three blocks to catch up to us to get a picture.”
You often hear horror stories of kids pulling Santa’s beard or going potty in Santa’s lap, but Angel says mishaps like that are few and far between. “Where I was,” he says, “nothing like that ever happened. The kids were great.”
Hank remembers one particularly heartwarming story about a family who visited him. After asking one of the children what they wanted for Christmas, the child turned around and asked what Santa wanted for Christmas.
“The kids were a little older,” says Angel, “so, instead of saying, ‘New bells for the reindeer,’ like I tell the little ones, I said, ‘A fedora,’ because the night before, I watched It’s a Wonderful Life, and seeing Jimmy Stewart in his hat, with his pipe and a holly wreath over the arm of his overcoat, made me think that someday I’d like to get a hat like that. The kids gave me a hug and I gave them a hearty ‘Ho, ho, ho!’ as they went on their way.”
An hour later, after Angel’s shift was over, the family came knocking. “There stood the family,” recalls Angel, “the youngest of the three kids holding out a black, Jimmy Stewart-style fedora.” The astonished Santa wanted to send the family a thank-you card, but the mother just said, “You work hard and it’s Christmastime, and we wanted to give you a gift. So, Merry Christmas.”
Deck the parents
As touching as that one family was, once in a while, Santas can be exposed to some pretty forceful parents. Angel recounts one woman who put so much pressure on her kids about getting their picture taken with Santa that at the last minute one of the kids decided that they didn’t want to do it. “And she just laid into the kid and made him feel so bad that I just wanted to deck her,” says Angel.
“The younger the kid is, the less you can predict how they will react,” explains Angel. “You can’t really see Santa’s face: he’s got this big white beard, and these glasses, and this big fur hat. And some kids are just uneasy about that. And you have to respect that.”
Luckily, this Santa can strategize. “You’re going to be my special helper,” Angel told one kid. “You can stand right here and hand out the candy canes. That way you can watch how it’s done and think about whether or not you want to do it.” Hank says that this approach was successful. “He watched a few other kids get their picture taken, and he saw that they didn’t get killed, and then he was fine.”
Father Christmas, on the other hand, has different problems to consider. The homeless folks living in downtown Victoria can sometimes be aggressive, he says. “There was one time that a group of homeless folks started swearing at us because we wouldn’t give them any candy canes,” says Fehr. The group followed Father and Mother Christmas for a block or two. “It was a little unnerving,” he says.
However, the city’s homeless have been able to provide some holiday cheer as well. “Our walk takes us down by the Salvation Army,” says Fehr, “and there’s some really fun people down there: homeless people that are always in good moods and always offering to give me a drink or a smoke of whatever. They’re always entertaining. We politely decline and say, ‘Father Christmas doesn’t do drugs and you shouldn’t either.’”
Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! No, really.
As my search led me away from mall Santas, to my absolute shock and subsequent joy, I discovered a man legally named Santa Claus who lives in North Pole, Alaska. Yes, folks, there is a Santa Claus!
He’s a volunteer child advocate and Christian bishop and monk who named himself after Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas), the real deal who lived during the fourth century in Asia Minor (now Turkey). But why change his name at all?
“In 2004, I grew out my naturally white beard,” says Claus. “Due to my new appearance, many folks suggested that I do the Santa thing that holiday season. I was Santa for numerous non-profit organizations and enjoyed it. Early the following year, I was walking to the post office on a brisk, sunny day and prayed to God regarding my new image. Should I use my image to help children? Less than a minute after I finished praying, a plain white sedan passed me on the road going in the opposite direction. Its window was open and I heard what sounded like a male in his 20s shout out, ‘I love you, Santa!’ I considered that as the answer to my prayer and decided to go through the process to change my name. I haven’t regretted it since.”
Claus is the founder of the Santa Claus Foundation, which advocates for two million children in the US who are abused, neglected, exploited, abandoned, homeless, and institutionalized. “Meaning they don’t have peace at home,” says Claus, “they don’t have love at home, usually, and that stems into the community, the country, and, ultimately, the world.”
However, the Internal Revenue Service restrains the foundation from lobbying or endorsing candidates that support their aims. Santa has since left his position as director to work independently.
“I still do the same work now, without the foundation,” says Claus. “Most of my volunteer advocacy work centres around prompting state and federal legislators to support a variety of legislation designed to improve children’s health, safety, and welfare throughout the United States. My legal name and location are powerful tools I employ to garner legislators’ attention and draw media attention to those legislators I feel are short-changing children.”
Naming names
The name Santa Claus is definitely a powerful one. The Santa’s Bless the Children Tour and the Vote for Santa campaigns, just two examples of this man’s work, have drawn the media’s attention to several children’s issues on a national level.
The 2006-2007 tour, in which Claus visited every governor’s staff throughout the US, discussed a variety of issues affecting vulnerable children, including the formulation of new processes to streamline government and agency systems designed to serve vulnerable children, particularly those eligible for foster care and adoption.
“Since [the tour],” says Claus, “there appears to be more cooperation among the various states and increasing interest at the federal level in protecting these children and facilitating their new foster/adoptive parents’ clearance and placement processes.”
Claus’ independent write-in presidential candidacies in the 2008 and 2012 federal elections had equal triumph, with recognition from the Federal Election Commission and 15 states. He used his platform to address a variety of children’s issues. “I may run as Alaska’s sole seat in the US House of Representatives in 2014,” he says.
Reflecting upon Claus’ work, it’s no surprise that in 2009 he received the International Peace Prize from the Santa Claus Peace Council in Turkey, where St. Nicholas lived in Asia Minor many centuries ago. “Since 1993 [the council has] been giving the international peace award to folks like me,” explains Claus, “but also to the Dalai Lama. So I think that I’m in pretty good company.”
Sleep in Heavenly peace
Claus’ story is an inspiring example of what all people are capable of. He views world peace as something we can accomplish together. “We can do it, there’s no reason we can’t, and it starts in the heart of each child,” he says. But how can we, as students, get involved in this cause?
“Instilling a sense of love and security is very important in a child’s early developmental stage,” says Claus, “and often lacking in families stressed by financial and other limitations. Stopping bullying at home, in school, at work, in the community, our country, and the world is incredibly important. There are many non-profit institutions and government agencies that try to address this area of concern.”
Perhaps this Christmas we should dump the excess presents and spend a few hours volunteering at a local non-profit concerned with child welfare. To quote one wise holiday TV special, “That’s what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown.”
A special Santa blessing for you and your family. Wishing you lifetimes filled with happiness, peace, good health, prosperity, and, most of all, love.