caption, page 1:
Resting Between Visits
Clay Birdsall, Santa's representative, takes a break between visits with children eager to tell him what they'd like for Christmas. He'll be back at Kazantzis Real Estate from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 11 and Dec. 18 and then it's back to the North Pole. More photos on page 4. Linda Lemmon photo.
captions, page 4, from top:
Abigail Swinson, 3, of Danielson is thrilled.
Alanna Mulira, 9; Jalynn Gorman, 9; Santa; and Ethan Mulira, 4, who asked Santa to come along with him for the rest of the day. More
Women from Albany, N.Y., who were on a holiday scavenger hunt in New England, checked off two items: Photo with Santa and a photo of a Christmas sweater (on helper Elf Denise Moore).
By Linda Lemmon
Town Crier Editor
NORTH POLE (by way of Putnam) — First-time Santa incarnation Clay Birdsall is all about Christmas.
What helps him represent Old St. Nick? “I’m still a believer. I still have the spirit,” he said. “I’ve already been watching Christmas movies,” he added.
Case in point: His whole day was made by one believer in particular, Ethan Mulira, 4, of Douglas, Mass. Ethan FLEW across the floor at Kazantzis Real Estate and velcroed himself to Santa’s leg, squealing. Nearly knocked Santa over. And he wouldn’t let go. In fact, he asked Santa if Santa would stay with him all day. “Come with me,” he said.
Santa couldn’t but he said later, “Ethan made the day, right there.”
Santa’s rep said he hasn’t let go of what Christmas is all about. “It’s more for the getting together, for family,” he said. “It may be a cold December out there, but it’s a very warm holiday.”
When he’s not transformed into Kris Kringle, Birdsall is a photographer (Clay Alan Photography) and one of his customers is Jennifer Lehto at Kazantzis. “I take photos for her listings and she was running out of options,” he said. “She called and said ‘You want to be Santa?’ and of course I said yes.” Dec. 4 was his first Santa experience. He’ll be back at Kazantzis from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Dec. 11 and Dec. 18.
Asked what his message is for kids he said “be good and help your parents.” He said the workshop has been very busy this year but one of the tough parts was — COVID‘s curse is everywhere, apparently — “especially waiting for materials.”
Denise Moore, an agent at Kazantzis, was one helpful Elf for Santa. A former preschool teacher, she had an educational gift for the kids: they each got to pick out a book. She said the books were from her “stash” left over from teaching.
And the young at heart dropped in, too. A group of women from Albany, N.Y., were on a New England holiday scavenger hunt and one of the items was a photo with Santa. They knocked that off their list and also a photo with a Christmas sweater, courtesy of Moore. Then they were off again on the hunt, still looking for a “leading man wearing flannel.”
Santa said they weren’t the only visitors from far-flung places. Visitors also came from Martha’s Vineyard. Santa is one popular guy.
Some Santa reps are very serious. Birdsall said the choices for his “uniform” ran the gambit. “I saw some Santa suits in the $3,000 range. He said one hair set, with separate whiskers, hair, eyebrows and moustache, plus the glue for it, was in the $500 range.
Looking out the storefront Santa saw that the children were smiling — just the children. Not a single adult. Stress trumps the holidays. “They, too, need to believe.”
..
