When Don Elliott puts on his family’s Santa Claus suit each December, it’s like slipping into a piece of his family’s history.
Seventy years ago, Elliott’s mother made a Santa Claus outfit for his father to wear when he was a baby and his brother was a toddler. His father wore the suit for a number of years, before it was put into a closet and forgotten, until Elliott was 14 and was asked to play Santa at a community function.
“I have worn that suit every Christmas since then, either for youth groups, Cub Scouts or relatives,” he says. “Santa has appeared every year at somebody’s house.”
While Santa is busy at the North Pole and too busy to attend all of the gatherings he’s invited to, Elliott is happy to fill in and keep the magic of Christmas alive.
“I guess it’s memories of what my dad must have done and felt, and it makes me feel good – just to go out and do that for kids that don’t expect it,” Elliott says. “You are giving them a little bit of joy, you are giving them a little bit of fun, maybe keeping the idea of Santa Claus alive.”
As a youngster growing up in New Westminster, Elliott was involved in Cubs and Scouts when the leader of the local Brownie pack asked if he’d be willing to play Santa Claus. He told his mom he needed to find a Santa suit to help out the Brownies.
“My mother says, ‘We have one downstairs.’ This was the first time I’d ever heard of the suit,” he recalls. “It had been put away all those years.”
His father only wore the suit for a few years, but Elliott has worn it annually since finding it in a suit box on a shelf more than 50 years ago.
“I wore it for the Brownies that year, and for multiple years after that, and for Scout gatherings and this and that. It was just something that happened,” he says. “I have worn it every year since.”
The suit box is long gone, but the Santa suit remains intact – if not a little more worn than it was the first time Elliott put it on.
“It’s getting threadbare. It’s the original cotton, cheap material. This would have been made just after the war,” he explains. “Originally the suit had cotton batten for fur around the cuffs and things like that. It had a really weird beard. Over the years we have added a better beard, a better wig. My wife has put more fur felt on the sleeves, things like that.”
Santa’s shoes have changed over the years as well.
“At one point, I was playing Santa Claus at my nephew’s house. He looked down at my toes and said, ‘Gee Santa, you’ve got the same kind of shoes that Uncle Don has,’” he says. “After that, I went out and bought a pair of black rubber boots.”
Elliott, 70, has donned the suit at for family, friends and community gatherings for decades. He enjoys enjoyed dropping by friends’ homes to spread a little Christmas cheer.
“A lot of memories,” he says of the feeling he gets when he puts on the suit. “The feeling you get from it is the fun of popping in unexpectedly. Sometimes it’s been a repeat visit because we have known them over the years and Santa always shows up, but even my nieces that are now in their 20s, if we are having a family dinner, I’ve got to put the suit on, ring the doorbell and come in the front door with the jingle bells. That’s part of the tradition.”
This year, Elliott will be suiting up as Santa for his three-year-old grandson and other family members. Undoubtedly, there will be other visits at Christmas as well, as Santa sometimes finds gifts at the bottom of the sleigh and returns to drop them off later on Christmas day.
“Friends up the street from us have three children, I’ll pop in at their house and leave a little gift,” Elliott says. “There’s always somebody to drop in on. I think the fun part was always dropping in to people who didn’t expect you.”
