Growing Up, I Didn’t Know My Daddy Was Santa Claus
He always knows how to bring the magic to life.
Those who don’t know my dad may describe him as aloof, painfully shy, or disengaged. However, once you get to know him, you see what lies behind those gentle blue eyes and the Santa Claus beard.
Daddy (my stepdad) grew up in a house where affection, gratitude, and caring for one another were non-existent. His mother was more than twenty years younger than his father. Grandma was unprepared to challenge a hardened farmer who appreciated little in life. As the youngest and only male, he shared the farming duties with his father.
His father hunted and had several hounds trained to retrieve the kills. It fell to my dad to put the dogs down if they lacked the skills to perform their job or killed chickens. These stories always break my heart.
The farmhouse where he grew up, and we subsequently moved into when my parents married in 1970, was a two-bedroom, one-bath house with poor insulation and thin walls. Privacy was non-existent.
When he was fourteen, he overheard his parents discussing the farm and their financial situation. They were on the brink of losing everything. Living on a farm, Daddy had been driving since he was a boy. He took the truck down to the bank and solicited a loan. The bank manager went with him to see the property Daddy’s parents owned and said, “Son, I’m going to loan you the money. I can’t lose. If you pay the loan, we get our money. If you don’t, we take your land.”
He saved the farm.
He was busy bailing hay, cutting wood, raising cattle, and breaking appaloosa horses when he wasn’t in school. His father helped with the work, but Daddy was the one who checked market prices and determined where and when they would sell their goods. He also ensured loan payments were paid in a timely manner.
His father passed away in 1968, leaving Daddy responsible for the land and his mother. Until meeting my mom in 1969, he thought he would live out his days on the farm as a bachelor taking care of his mom.
The magic he brought to my childhood
I met my Daddy when I was six years old. Mama was a single parent, having divorced my biological father when I was three. Tom was out of the picture because he chose to be.
While visiting my great-great-aunt and uncle, I met a dusty, quiet, already balding young man. After going to the restroom, I came out of their farmhouse, and he was occupying my seat under the large maple tree. It was my seat because it was next to Uncle Clarence, which meant it was next to Smokey, their black lab.
After trying to get his attention and failing, I climbed into his lap to resume my place under the tree. This got his attention. He was uncomfortable holding a child and had no idea what to do with me, so he just stayed there, not wanting to take any action.
I began asking questions to learn more about him. When I realized he lived on a farm, I couldn’t wait for Mama to meet him. I just knew she’d love him.
And, so it was. Nine months later, we went to the courthouse and got married. My siblings and I all said “I do” when asked — we felt like the wedding was for us, too. We were a family!
Daddy never dated. He lacked a social life because he devoted all his time to the farm. His exposure to children was limited to large family gatherings, where he didn’t interact with them, choosing instead to hang out with the men. It must not have been easy to go from bachelorhood to being a father of three and a husband.
His first Father’s Day was a fiasco. While riding Snippy, the pony who was appropriately named, I accidentally knocked my sister off balance when he tried to bite my foot. She took me down with her as she fell, and I broke her arm when I landed on her.
While Mama was at the hospital with my sister, my brother and I were playing on the front porch, racing back and forth. The game intensified with each trying to beat the other until we couldn’t stop and flew off the end taking the ricketty banister with us. It landed on top of us and broke my collarbone. It was quite the start to fatherhood!
My memories of growing up are full of special things he did for all of us. His instincts as a caregiver extended beyond the farm animals and his mother to his expanded family.
Special memories from my childhood
All my siblings left home when I was fourteen, and my grandfather died the same year. Daddy went into overdrive to do special things for me.
I mentioned to Mama that rainwater was supposed to make your hair silkier. I read about it in Teen magazine. After the next big storm, he asked me, “Squirty (my nickname), when are you washing your hair?” I’m not sure, maybe tonight. He took me outside and showed me all the rainwater he collected. I threw on a bathing suit, and he poured water over my head while I washed my hair. I felt like one of the girls in the magazine, so pampered.
I loved skiing at the Lake of the Ozarks where we had a cabin off Truman Dam. When I was fifteen, he gave me a new slalom ski with a concave base. It was amazing and the nicest present I had ever received.
The next time we went to the lake, we were on the water just after sunrise when the surface was like glass; reflections mirrored the docks and trees without a ripple. We loved the solitude when the lake was ours. The ski performed like nothing I had ever experienced. I could practically lie on the water as I jumped the wake, leaning as far as possible to create a high arc with my ski. I zipped to and from across the wake to pull up parallel to the boat so my dad could easily see me as I went from side to side.
One day, Daddy saw me struggling to braid my hair. “Squirty, can you teach me how? I can do it for you then.” With his large farmer hands permanently stained by axle grease and spotted white from burns sustained from welding, he carefully laced my hair in braids, changing the design based on whether I wanted a single plait or pigtails coming down from a French braid on both sides.
He shifted his work schedule when I entered high school. That way, he could take me to school so that I wouldn’t need to ride the bus, which took nearly two hours one way because I was the first pick up, and we lived in the country. Although I’d get to the school nearly an hour early, I preferred arriving early vs. taking the bus.
I often hosted hayride parties, and Daddy would gather wood to make a campfire. His patience in pulling us around the fields and neighborhoods was heroic, especially considering how tired he must have been. Between the farm and his job, Daddy slept when he could. Daddy loved seeing me have fun.
When farming wasn’t enough
Growing up, we had some challenging years. Daddy began working as a welder when I was thirteen. Mama and I waited in the car to help him complete the application. He didn’t know how to read or write. Although he graduated high school, he spent so little time in class because of his duties on the farm.
A few months after he started at Pitman, the foreman asked: “Hey John, where did you go to school to learn that technique?” Somewhat amused, Daddy looked at him and said, “I never went to school. I barely went to high school. I learned how to weld on the farm to fix machinery.”
When Daddy left his last employer, less than two weeks later, they announced they were closing the factory. Every time he went on vacation, Daddy had to prepare several trucks so people could keep working. Likely, the closure was coming anyway, but they also knew no one could do as many jobs as he could, even at sixty-two.
Becoming Santa
Mama traveled to Venezuela in May 2001 when I was due to deliver our third child. I was thirty-eight, and Daddy was fifty-nine. While Mama was visiting, he decided to grow a beard. At first, he looked like Papa Smurf; however, it was a full Santa beard by December.
Mama encouraged him to wear red regularly. Becoming Santa transformed my dad. Not only did he look like Santa (sans the belly because he has always had a fast metabolism), he became extroverted.
An idea was born. He could be a natural bearded Santa.
Together with my former husband and children, we were repatriated to the US in January 2003 after living abroad for eleven years. My parents came to visit in June. We drove down to Cherry Hill, NJ, where I set up a meeting with an agency responsible for placing natural bearded Santas in malls. They hired him on the spot.
Daddy began his career as Santa at the Palisades Mall in New York on November 27, 2003. He went on to work at private parties and malls in Oregon, Kansas, and Missouri for sixteen years.
His beard grew longer and longer. He let his hair grow and got a permanent in his beard and hair for the holiday season. When he bought new glasses, they were round gold frames. He embraced his image as Santa and stopped to talk with anyone who approached him. He was always thoughtful in his responses, never promising anything. Mostly, he was present in his interactions to make people feel listened to.
My youngest told all her friends her grandpa was Santa. No one believed her until he walked in to celebrate her sixth birthday. Twenty kids audibly inhaled as he entered, smiling and saying hello to each child.
Dad has not worked as Santa since COVID-19; however, he still embodies his persona as Santa and continues bringing magic to everyday situations.
Unseen magic
Daddy is a guiding influence in my life. He is generous with his time and his affection. My dad is the original McGuyver. He can fix anything with what you have around. His brain is like that of an engineer, even without the education. Thankfully, I picked up his can-do attitude and practical skills along the way and passed these down to my children.
He represents what it means to be a genuinely caring individual. Of all the men in my life, aside from my maternal grandfather, Daddy is the only one who has never disappointed or hurt me.
When family members call, he asks, “Whatcha been doing for fun?” He wants to make sure we are finding joy in life. For a man raised in such austere circumstances, I have no doubt that marrying Mama and being our dad filled his life with more joy than he ever hoped.
I know he has filled my life (and my children’s) with joy and magic!
