San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
That time Santa rang the doorbell and walked in.
Memorable night revealed a happy, convivial side of a withdrawn father
On Christmas Eve, when I was 7 years old, my father was late getting out of the house, so my mother and I left ahead of time and went around the corner to celebrate the holiday with our relatives. It was an exciting night, because we’d been hearing reports of Santa Claus in the New York area — a sleigh was even seen over the Verrazzano Bridge.
Soon after we arrived, the sense of the moment intensified when the woman next door walked into my aunt’s house, awestruck. She had just seen a sleigh and eight reindeer pass over the roof! All the kids ran to the window and looked out, and I couldn’t believe my eyes: Santa Claus was walking down the street. I ran back to the couch with my cousins and sat perfectly still. Then the bell rang, the door opened, and Santa Claus was in the house.
He was stocky — about 5 feet, 10 inches tall — and very jolly. He knew everybody’s name, made lots of jokes and, at one point, he had a present for my cousin Vito. He tried to give it to my grandfather Vito. Then tried to give it to my Uncle Vic, whose real name was Vito. Then he gave it to the right Vito. ( Italians recycle names forever.) Implicit in this mock confusion was the idea that Santa Claus, as an eternal being, knew my grandfather and uncle when they were kids.
As Santa handed me a present, I noticed he had a nose just like my father’s. But I didn’t think anything of this, except as a curious coincidence. Then 45 minutes later, long after Santa had gone, my father showed up at the party.
“My whole life I’ve wanted to meet Santa Claus, and I go and miss him,” he said. “I can’t believe it!”
“He has a nose just like you,” I told him.
“Really?” His face turned red, his throat tightened and he looked like he was about to cry. For reasons I didn’t understand, my mother and aunt ran out of the room, apparently about to burst into tears. “Well,” he said, sort of through his teeth. “Maybe next year.” Then he turned away to have a private moment.
Over the next few days, I heard that all the kids in the neighborhood had met Santa Claus, and he’d given them presents. One of the older kids told me that Santa Claus was, in fact, my father in disguise, but I thought that was hilarious. He would never buy those kids presents. He didn’t even like them. In fact, he wasn’t crazy about most of the neighbors. Plus, Santa Claus was exuberant. My father was withdrawn, a moody guy, not jolly at all.
Years later, I found out the real story. One of the neighbors had a Santa suit and asked my father if he’d play Santa for their kids. He said yes, and then went to all the neighbors on our block and around the corner and asked the different parents if they wanted him to play Santa Claus for kids. They did, and each gave him a present to put in his bag.
I must repeat that this was singularly uncharacteristic of him. My father had his good points, but he didn’t like many people. He was not all that generous of spirit, and he was the furthest thing from an extrovert. But just as actors say that sometimes just putting on the costume and makeup can give them the role, the Santa Claus suit liberated something within him.
In that suit, my father became happy and accepting and warm and funny and giving and not scary at all. He became Santa Claus. He became everything his family wished he could be. More to the point, he became what could have been — what was him to be — but he just never got there.
But at least I know: My father had Santa Claus inside him, and once I got to meet him.
So this is my message to all you fathers out there this Christmas season: You’re probably stuck indoors with the family, but you want to make things special. Get a Santa suit. You think your kids won’t believe it? Take my word for it, if they’re young enough, they won’t even question it. The world has changed a lot since Christmas Eve, 1966, but I can’t imagine children are all that different.
If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. But if it work, then maybe you’ll be giving your children a piece of you they never expected to see, and a memory that will last for years past your own lifetime.
Martin had his silk suit ready to go when Fairy Winterland was canceled because of the state’s latest lockdown orders. Other Santas have preempted stateordered cancellations.
“Many of us Santas are older than 70, and Santa himself is 1,700 years old,” explains “Santa” Bob Jacobson, 73, a retired HewlettPackard executive who lives in Hollister. “Santas are a highrisk age group.”
Jacobson and Harvest both made the migration to online with the assistance of Hollywood acting coach Santa Ed Taylor, who operates the Worldwide Santa Claus
Network. In April, Santa Ed altered his online classes to prepare Santas for digital visits. What had been online webinars were switched to Zoom to allow beardtobeard interaction between Santa Ed and his students. The network has 3,400 members, and there has been overflow attendance this year, bringing Santas in from Europe, Asia, Africa and Australia.
“The virtual visits with Santa have been around for a long time, but this year it exploded,” says Santa Ed, who has moved to Oregon to ride out the pandemic. He’s turned down all public appearances and is making a living doing virtual visits. He has 300 booked and expects to hit 400.
“I’m pretty bummed about not doing it this year. I don’t have the calls coming in that I normally get. The phone has been silent.”
Scott Doyal, Santa and a retired customer sales manager for Toyota
Santa Ed charges $ 100 for the first 15 minutes of a virtual visit with a customer, who also gets to download the video file. Santa Bob charges half that. Santa Scot charges $ 150 an hour for group and corporate events, but kids can Zoom in for free, with tips appreciated. His Facebook page, Pirate Santa, carries an ad for Zoom and Facebook video calls, and 5,000 people have clicked onto it already this year.
Scott Doyal had never considered himself a Santa type until he was handed a costume by his landlord, who asked him to wear it to his Christmas party.
“You don’t turn down the landlord if you don’t want an eviction notice under your tree,” says Doyal, 59, a retired customer sales manager for Toyota. It would have ended then and there had Doyal not decided to drop by the famous Christmas Lights House on Old
Glen Cove Road in Vallejo.
This is the place that was featured on “The Great American Christmas Lights Fight” on ABCTV in 2014. People had been invited to park and wander through the display, which is what Doyal was doing when he ran into the homeowner, Bob Taylor. As a lark, Doyal volunteered to play Santa for the night, since he had the costume on and all.
That was the first of seven years doing the job from dusk until there are no more kids in line, which can be midnight.
“He is the best,” says Taylor, who has been doing up his house for 20 years and has seen a progression of Santas. “If you see Scott in his suit and the way he acts with the kids, he is the best Santa I ever saw. He stays up on the latest toys and can talk to the kids about them. This guy is good.”
And the price is right. Doyal does it for free and even helps Taylor close up every night.
“I never had any training. It has all been attitude,” says Doyal. “When I see the kids that come who are shy or afraid, I pride myself in turning them around and making them a fan. I’ve made parents cry by the way I talk to their kids.”
But he will not be talking to kids this year, because the Christmas Lights House will be closed due to COVID19 concerns. Doyal has managed to pick up spot Santa work at a treelighting parade in Dixon, where he now lives, but this can’t replace everyday work.
“I’m pretty bummed about not doing it this year,” he says. “I don’t have the calls coming in that I normally get. The phone has been silent.”
He’s been in such a funk that his mother called from Petaluma and offered to bring him a Charlie Brown Christmas tree. It should be in his house, decorated with one ornament, on Sunday evening, Dec. 13, when the real thing will arrive on his TV screen. For the first time ever, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” will air commercial free on PBS. The show is where Lucy delivered her zinger on Christmas commercialization, and it has inspired Santa Scot Harvest to work up some zingers of his own to ease the transition to Zoom.
“How does Santa Claus clean his hands?” he says, testing one on a reporter. “He uses Santatizer.”
“Even the kids think that it’s a corny joke,” he admits, “but I would like to think Santa has a childlike sense of humor.”