A big, red, jolly leap of faith
When it comes to Santa Claus, whether you’re young or just young at heart, the facts don’t matter — you want to believe
The red suit gives him away. “It’s Santa Claus!” 10-year-old Gianna DiAngelo shouts. She and her friend Olivia Leonhard, who’s 12, run to where Santa stands on the bank of Tempe Town Lake, awaitng the start of the Fantasy of Lights Boat Parade. The girls are wearing light-up tutus, which leave streaks of bright white in the growing dusk as they collide with Santa, hugging him on either side. They are believers. Gianna’s mom, Krissy DiAngelo, of Chandler, is glad. “It’s the magic of it. The innocence of it,” she says. “If you believe, then anything is possible, and everything is real.” Santa admits he’s noticed over the past 15 years that kids seem to doubt him at an earlier age — say, 8 or 9, instead of 10 or 11. “This never gets old,” Santa says, chuckling. A little boy comes to a dead stop, and his mouth drops open. He calls back to his cousins: “It’s Santa!”
It’s always been a competition between kids, who grow more rational and more skeptical each year, and parents, who work like elves to answer for any inconsistencies, claiming belief in time travel, feigning surprise that Santa bought the exact same wrapping paper at Target, all to keep the magic alive.
Older siblings and friends tell kids one thing. Their parents tell them another.
In the end, they Google it.
Do you want to believe?
This is the season for believing: that Santa (and the relative who pulled your name in the family draw) will come through, in the birth of Jesus Christ, in joy to the world, that the new boots will fit and that, if presented with an engagement ring, the love of your life will say yes.
“If you don’t believe, you don’t receive,” I chide my family, even the ones way past the age of Santa.
My son Sawyer was 8 when he came home from school, threw down his backpack and announced that a boy in his class had told him that there was no Santa Claus.
“He said it’s your parents,” Sawyer reported, looking at me accusingly.
“I believe in Santa,” I told him. Sawyer buried his face in the front of my shirt.
I asked, “Do you want to believe?” He nodded.
So we kept believing in Santa and other things, despite the evidence to the contrary. At that time, it was the Force and the wisdom of Yoda, rocks, tree forts, the healing power of a mother’s hug and that it’s safer crossing the street if you’re holding hands.
The young ones want to believe
Santa understands.
“They might say, ‘Oh, I don’t believe in Santa anymore,’ but when they get in front of the guy in the red suit, that all goes away,” says Santa, who sometimes goes by Ron Elliott and spends downtime in Glendale.
“Are you the real Santa?” they ask. “Well, what do you think?” he asks. They tug on his beard. It’s real.
It has changed over the years, as Santa, in the guise of Elliott, dealt with cancer three times. The beard has thinned out and then grown full again. He teases it out. His weight has fluctuated a bit because of it, but today he fills out his red suit, the wide black belt snug around his belly.
“Hi, Santa!” calls 4-year-old Weston Rogers. His mom hands Santa his 2year-old brother, Ridge.
Santa raises his eyebrows — this is the age, 1 to 2, most likely to cry.
“I don’t know why they cry,” he says. “Santa’s not that scary, is he?”
But Ridge doesn’t cry, nor does his cousin, Ella Johnson, also 2, though she stays in her mom’s arms.
“Have you been a good boy all year?” Santa asks Weston. He nods, wideeyed. Yes. He’d like a toy garbage truck.
Other children tug on the hem of his jacket.
No matter their age, Santa thinks they want to believe.
It’s worth their while. Mom and Dad might say no to something, but Santa could come through.
Sometimes it doesn’t matter that it’s true, as long as you believe.
Believing isn’t always easy
It’s been a hard year for believing. There are some things we can’t understand, inconsistencies we can’t resolve, not as easily as invoking magic to explain how Santa bypasses security alarms and gets all over the world in a single night.
“Believe me,” President Donald Trump said again and again, but it wasn’t always easy, whether it was about voter fraud or crowd size or Russians meddling in the election.
Global warming is a hoax. The tax-reform bill will help the working poor and middle class. And if it was such a big deal, why didn’t she speak up sooner? I hope Santa fact-checks.
It should be simple. Either it is true, or it isn’t. But it is more complicated than that.
The truth is, we believe what we want to believe. We ignore the things that contradict our beliefs, play with the facts to make them fit our narratives.
But there comes a time when we have to decide where to put our faith: in supposition or science, in politics or people, in what we wish were true or what is.
A live frog? She believes it
This is Santa’s busiest time of year. He is much in demand at family gatherings, corporate gatherings, charity functions and parades like this one on Tempe Town Lake, and not only at this time of year.
Santa appears at birthday parties all year.
“They’re tired of princesses and superheroes. They want Santa Claus,” he says, chuckling.
He talks to the parents ahead of time to find out what their children could do to improve before Christmas, so when they climb onto his lap at the party, he can say things like “You know, I’ve heard that you don’t put away your ‘Star Wars’ Lego when you’re finished playing with them,” or “You interrupt Mommy and Daddy when they’re talking.”
He asks if they could work on that before Christmas.
By the looks on their faces, Santa can tell they are thinking, “How does he know that? He must be the real deal.”
This year, children are asking for Hatchimals (again), hover boards, drones and clothes, usually specific items with a designer label.
Santa is hoarse from talking so much. “Santa has a frog in his throat,” he says, chuckling.
Speaking of frogs, one little girl asked for a frog. “A stuffed frog?” he asked. No, a live one.
Her parents were standing nearby and nodded. The girl explained that her bedroom is painted like a swamp, and she already has a lizard and turtles.
Sometimes kids asked for things Santa can’t deliver. Like for Mom or Dad serving overseas to make it home for Christmas. And puppies. (Santa doesn’t promise live animals — except for that one frog — without parent approval.)
“They believe you can do it,” Santa says. That’s the hardest part.
Santa gets requests from adults, too, for new cars and fancy cellphones. (Just for the record, Santa doesn’t like it when grown-ups drink too much and tumble into his lap or get handsy with Santa.
That will get you put on the Naughty List.)
The (kinda) miracle by the lake
Santa’s ride, a 24-foot Bennington pontoon boat covered in lights, pulls up to the dock to pick him up. Christmas carols are blasting from the speakers.
“Santa!” Ahren Benziger calls. He’s wearing a red and green elf hat with oversized ears on each side. He helps Santa onto the boat.
This is Benziger’s third year giving Santa a ride around the lake. He’s the sales manager at Action WaterSports Arizona in Mesa, though there’s no advertising on the boat that says so.
Robbie Brown, who owns the boat dealership and is on board, too, shrugs. “It’s Christmas, and it’s Santa,” he says. He pulls on an elf hat. “It’s all about the kids.”
Santa’s floating sleigh tools around one end of the lake for a bit, weaving in and out of the other boats, which are decorated with lights, inflatable snowmen and even a Santa surfing, waiting for the start of the parade.
Kids on the other boats catch sight of Santa and wave. One boy waves so hard he almost falls in. A nearby adult grabs him by the back of his sweatshirt. Santa chuckles.
There are 47 boats in the parade this year, but at this moment, only 46 are in the water.
Stacy Burrell, of Mesa, the grandmother of young Weston (who told Santa he wanted a garbage truck) and 10 grandchildren altogether, tells me their family has participated in the boat parade for 10 years running.
But when they launched the boat earlier, it began to fill with water. Grandpa Burrell had forgotten the drain plug. “Grandpa’s in trouble,” Grandma Burrell says.
The family would have to watch the parade from the bank this year.
When Benziger hears about the boat with the missing drain plug, he jumps up out of his seat. He has one in his car.
Matt Sellards, a master technician in the captain’s chair, turns the boat back to the marina. There might just be enough time before the parade starts to get the stranded boat onto the lake.
Benziger leaps from the front of the boat onto the dock and takes off running, still wearing his elf hat.
He’s gone for 10 or 15 minutes, and then he reappears on the marina, running back toward the water, his elf hat in his hands. Santa and everyone else on the boat cheer.
“They were just so excited to get back on the water,” Benziger reports.
“Santa’s helper to the rescue,” says Benziger’s mom, Janette. Her son said he stopped believing in Santa when he was 10, but she suspects there’s some of Santa in him still.
Santa smiles and nods, watching Benziger leap back onto the boat. Santa is always watching, paying attention to who’s naughty and who’s nice.
Santa believes in you
As the parade gets started, Santa waves and points, croaking a deep but froggy “Ho-ho-ho!” He places his finger alongside his nose like he might rise up a chimney, and then he chuckles and grabs his belly.
Benziger and Brown, on their knees next to Santa so they look more like elves, start the crowd chanting, “Santa! Santa! Santa!”
And I watch, smiling, because no matter how old you are, if Santa waves at you, you wave back.
Sellards drives as close as he can to the bank, so everyone can get a good look at Santa. Even when Santa’s boat falls behind the others, the hundreds of people on the bank stay.
They want to believe.
“Merry Christmas, Santa!” people call. A couple of kids call out what they want: A dirt bike. A hover board. Hatchimals.
Santa is already on it.
The boat pulls up to the dock at Tempe Beach Park, where Santa disembarks to more cheers. People already are lined up to meet the man of the hour. All sorts of people.
A tattooed dad with his little girl in his arms. Teenagers with cellphones in their hands. A family speaking excitedly in Spanish. Grandparents with grandchildren.
Santa knows if you’ve been good
Santa smiles when he sees them, the line snaking along the lake. He can’t see the end of it.
He eases himself onto a white throne wide enough to seat three across.
Santa believes. In the goodness of children. In the love of parents for their kids. That all people are equal. That we are better when we all get along.
And that people — like Benziger, who leaps from boat to dock to save a family’s 10-year tradition — are good.
Santa doesn’t get involved in politics. He has no political party. But he knows what it means to believe.
And with a twinkle in his eye, Santa says he is sure the world would be a better place if everyone — even the people on the Naughty List (and “you can always work yourself off that list,” he says) — worked a bit harder to stay on the Nice List.