Santa! Exclusive!
Claus tells how he won’t let COVID stop Chrismas
A few days after Thanksgiving, Santa Claus — who lives in Rochester, a few hours southwest of North Pole, N.Y. — had asked a boy on Zoom what he wanted for Christmas this year.
“Santa, can you take COVID away?” replied the child, around age 5, as he peered into the screen at the ruddy face of Kris Kringle.
Claus — who goes by Mike Ihrig on his off days so that the kids don’t know Santa’s in their midst — worried back in March about this very question.
“I said then to myself, ‘I wonder what the children are thinking?’” Ihrig told the Daily News. “They might be losing their faith and in what’s going to happen [next] if things are going to get better — and I said, ‘I wonder if they’re going to lose their belief in me?’”
As he looked at the little boy on the screen, Claus searched for the right words.
“COVID isn’t something that Santa can take away,” Ihrig recalled in the warm, scruffy voice of Father Christmas.
“‘You know, the other day another little boy asked me how I made it snow,’ ” he told the child. “And I said, ‘I don’t make it snow! And there are some things I can’t make happen, and I can’t make go away.’ ”
Ihrig, who has been donning the red suit for 40 years, is making sure Santa is still comin’ to town — through Zoom.
He’s one of hundreds of people across the country who have posted Old Saint Nick for-hire ads on The Bash, GigSalad, Santa’s Club and other party planning websites, hoping to bring a little virtual cheer this holiday season.
“I work hard to do what I do virtually, it’s harder than doing it live,” said Ihrig, whose plans to meet the kids in person this year were dashed. “But I want to reach the boys and girls to let them know Santa’s still here.”
Ihrig first put on the red suit and a rolled-cotton beard in 1971 — a vestige made by his wife, who has also doubled as Mrs. Claus — for his niece and nephew.
But it wasn’t until the early 1980s when another jolly Kris Kringle arrived at Ihrig’s former Rochester shop, Mike’s Magic and Merriment, that Ihrig considered assuming the role of Santa.
So he went to Albion, N.Y., home to the world-famous Santa School founded by legendary Macy’s Santa, Charles W. Howard. And as Ihrig perused their stock of custom-made suits, he turned to his wife, beaming.
“I said to [her], ‘If I’m going to do this, I’m gonna buy the best that they have,’ ” he said.
Ihrig left with a wool and white-rabbit fur ensemble, along with a top-of-the-line Kryolan beard — and a new identity.
“When I put on the suit, I morph into Santa,” he said. “He becomes me. I become him. I represent a legend.”
Since then, Ihrig — who says he’s 471 years old, with plans to retire at 500 — has worked at a host of places, including North Pole, a hamlet within the town of Wilmington, N.Y.
This Christmas, he will be greeting kids from his basement toyshop: a studio filled with snow globes, teddy bears and other toys, built after the pandemic hit to serve as a backdrop for his new YouTube channel, Santa’s Magical Visit, and in preparation for many virtual visits.
This weekend, he has booked over 90 calls — and counting.
“I’m not your mamby pamby Santa,” Ihrig said. “I’m not the guy who sits around and says, ‘Oh, that’s a pretty pink dress.’ That’s not what the kids want. They want the real deal — and I’m the real deal.”