of Santa Claus as a “character” was spurred considerably when, on a wintery day in 1822, an American Episcopal minister penned a lengthy poem to entertain his three daughters on a sleigh ride, mashing together portions of the Claus story thus far with his own imaginative twists. Clement Clarke Moore’s “An Account of a Visit from St. Nicholas”—best known as “The Night Before Christmas”—was eventually, and anonymously at first, published in the New York Sentinel, conjuring up new images of the saint-turned-jolly-old-elf that persist to this day.
In fairly short order, Santa’s mythical arrival on North American shores helped prompt a number of previously unimagined notions, such as large-scale gift giving to children and, as a growing capitalism would have it, subsequent advertising focused solely on Christmas shopping.
By the end of the 19th century, Santa Claus was such a goodwill icon that the Salvation Army began dressing up unemployed men in his likeness, sending them into the streets to solicit donations to fund Christmas meals for “needy” families.
The tales of other Clauses, their history and antics, are both literally and figuratively all over the map. From Britain’s Father Christmas to Italy’s Babbo Natale to Brazil’s Papai Noel, each one is nuanced with cultural charisma and social mythology. Even grander twists in his likeness can be found in Russia’s Ded Moraz (“Grandfather Frost”), accompanied by his granddaughter (“Snow Maiden”), Japan’s Buddhist monk Hotei-osho, and the Julenissen of Norway (“The Christmas Gnome”). Some countries’ Clauses even include unsettling accounts of his livelihood, such as an ancient Romanian fable of three unruly Santa brothers shockingly causing mischief and pain all the way into the nativity story.
But none has risen to the heights of mainstream welcome more than Clement Clarke Moore’s jolly sleigh-ride Santa. For by the time Norman Rockwell and Coca Cola had their way with that same Santa, immortalizing his image with compelling paintings in the early 20th century, there was no turning back. The ensuing decades have left little wiggle room for change. Thus, today’s uber-popular cartoonish Santa Claus is as far removed from 4th century sainthood as stone-aged Bedrock is from 1950s Brooklyn.
But I say, “No harm, no foul.” The soda pop Santa of my youth, while admittedly robbed of his profound social justice backstory, is simply kind and fun and generous and harmless, and that seems like more than enough goodness to play make-believe with. For myself, as a Christian, it totally negates any crusty debate that there might be a significant or disconcerting competition going on with the birth of a Messiah, as I have yet to meet an adult who has become a disciple of a pretend Claus.
As watered down as his cartoonish story has become, this is the Santa that I banked on as a little boy and cheered on as a dad. The one that’s been scrubbed clean from controversy, and worlds away from any of the dark, disturbing or complex mythological lore found in various would-be Claus chronicles.
In fact, some of Norman Rockwell’s paintings show Saint Nick donning a halo. While some might dispute Rockwell’s artistic license as heresy, I just plain like the added nuance, created by a few brush strokes, that says, “There’s only good going on here.”
This was the Santa I wanted my little girl, and later my little boy as well, to experience. Not just to imagine, but to experience.
And so, when my little girl was just three years old, I hatched a plan. One that ultimately, and very unexpectedly, grew into an ongoing and life-changing experience for me personally. It all started out quite simple, before rapidly turning into a wild and often unwieldy tradition.
All I initially wanted was for her to catch Santa Claus in action, during her very tender, imaginative and impressionable years. Not just an indoor staged mall Claus but the real deal, makin’ his rounds on Christmas Eve. So, I rented a Santa suit and began working a plan.
The whole bit of business was initially only meant to be a thirty- to sixty-second one-time gasp of an ordeal.
As an inner-city street outreach worker, I was often leaving home mid-evening to visit homeless youth and adults under bridges and in alleyways, so it was not uncommon for me to say early “goodnights” at home and depart until well past midnight. And early on, Sarah Jane was too wee to wonder why I would do that even on Christmas Eve. So, “to work” I went, or so she thought. But this time I simply drove my pickup truck around the corner, parked on a parallel street, snuck home on foot, entered through the side door, and crept down to the basement. In short order I was in costume and sneaking back out and into the backyard, all while my wife, Diane, kept Sarah Jane too occupied to notice.
All according to plan, Diane then beckoned Sarah Jane to peek into the backyard, cued by a snowball blast against the window, in a “What was that?” moment.
And there, in the snowy shadows of our maple tree, my little girl spotted the great Claus sneaking through the yard, stopping at the centre to look through his sack, just close enough to the window for her to get a good, shocking look. Sure enough, Santa would look up and see that he was caught in action and rush across the yard to hide behind the shed. And that was it, the whole shebang! An astonishing sighting at best, a fleeting did-that-really-happen experience in the least.
It’s always a jolt when things unexpectedly take on a life of their own, and this surely did! Friends and family heard about the caper, and the escapade grew. The following Christmas Eve I found myself visiting the backyards of a dozen friends’ and family’s homes where small children might be caught off guard with delight, having had my very own tailored Santa suit made and having purchased a theatre-worthy faux white beard and wig. Each visit was coordinated with precision, moving from west to east across the Greater Toronto Area on a rigid four-hour-plus timeline, so I could finale in my own backyard.
By the time my son was born, I was up to an exhausting commitment of sixteen annual backyard Christmas Eve visits. Now working a tricky six-hour cross-city schedule built around a plethora of Christmas Eve family traditions, dinners and church services, I found myself spending the night before Christmas travelling solo in the dark—hopping rickety fences, navigating dog droppings, and occasionally ending up in backyards of total strangers, much to their astonishment. The whole gag had likewise evolved into a much more complex production, inclusive of playful three-minute skits in the moonlight, followed by the theatre of writing (previously penned) notes for each child with a three-foot-long magic crayon, and treats left on each back stoop before the climatic “Ho-ho-ho” rush away.
Of course, word spread quickly among friends and colleagues that I had a bit of a covert Santa gig going, and it wasn’t long before I found myself volunteering near and far throughout the month of December, in hospitals and group homes and for families with children too fragile to leave home to meet a shopping mall or church basement Santa. By the time the routine had taken me all the way to the orphanages of Romania, I had processed in my own head—although others may not have yet understood it—the sacredness of the opportunity afforded me when purposed solely as a wildly unique opportunity to bless and be blessed.
The truth is that early and often the whole Santa gig necessarily included a number of awkward refusals as well. With all of it as much of a shock to me as anyone, by word of mouth alone I could have filled my Decembers with daily Claus engagements if I’d wanted to. I began getting calls from friends and associates, friends of friends and associates of associates, looking for Christmas party and special event Clauses. Ugh. I could not have been less interested, then or now. And every time someone asked my fee, I knew the inquiry was as far, far away as could be from the heartbeat of what I’d meant to do.
While this brief overview of the evolution of my own intrigue with Santa Claus and the strange personal tradition that grew out of it will help contextualize a number of the chapters in this book, there is one more twist that not only shapes this book but continues to shape me. One that, as it’s told,
