STORY AND PHOTO BY KAREN BOSSICK
Santa recalls having to ride a horse-drawn sleigh through the streets of Ketchum during the 1980s because the city didn’t keep them plowed as fastidiously as it does now.
He’s shown up to Ketchum tree lightings riding in a fire truck bucket. And he’s arrived on the scene at the annual tree lighting at Sun Valley Resort behind a miniature horse or even in a golf cart.
But on Saturday the good-natured, good-hearted fellow, who often goes by the name Jack Williams, will ride for the first time in Ketchum’s annual Big Hitch Parade.
Santa, you see, has been named the Grand Marshal for the 61st Wagon Days parade. He will be feted with pizza and drink during the Grand Marshal’s reception from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Aug. 31, at Ketchum Town Square. And he’ll ride front and center in the parade at 1 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 1.
“I think it’s marvelous, just a very high honor,” said Santa, the customary twinkle in his eye. “I’ve corralled at least five grandchildren who will ride with me, as well as my son who lives in Boise and perhaps another grandson. It’s such an exciting thing for everyone.”
Santa arrived in Ketchum in 1977 disguised as Jack Williams—photographer, a passion incited at 8 when his parents gave him a little dollar camera. A native of San Francisco, he had been enchanted by the dog sled scene in the movie “Sun Valley Serenade” and wanted to be to Sun Valley what photographer Ansel Adams was to Yosemite.
But it was when he donned his famous red costume to pose with people having their picture taken on top of Bald Mountain that he realized his true calling.
It took some special skills to be a mountaintop Santa. A number of drinking clubs inhabited Sun Valley in its early days, and when they toasted the mountain, Santa had to toast it with them.
Then he had to snowplow 3,400 vertical feet of mountain very carefully, waving his hand in the manner of rodeo queens while greeting skiers with his “Ho, Ho, Ho.”
“It was hard on the quads but it was the only way. It wouldn’t have done for Santa to have fallen, for the kids to see Santa parts all over the place,” he says.
His busy Christmas Eve schedule at private homes throughout the valley included the home of Bruce Willis and Demi Moore when their three daughters were young.
“I remember one time, going to their home and sitting down and eating the cookies and milk they’d left out for me while Bruce went to get the girls. Next thing I know Bruce was saying, ‘That’s perfect.’ I said, ‘I haven’t done anything.’ But he had awakened the girls and they saw me sitting there and they knew Santa had come.”
A twinkle brightens Santa’s eyes: “I ask people, ‘How come Demi Moore paid me to sit in my lap? It’s because she hired me as Santa.’ ”
Santa’s own flair for acting didn’t hurt. He appeared in “Auntie Mame” for Laughing Stock Theater and he appeared in “Man of La Mancha” in Boise.
“I did my first Santa gig at the University of California-Berkeley at 19 so I’ve really been Santa my whole life,” he said. “Being Santa is like being a street performer or mime—and I like it.”
When it comes time to make an appearance as the jolly old man, Santa retrieves his red velvet suit from among the flannel shirts hanging in his walk-in closet and dons it over red underwear—“the kids don’t like you to wear street clothes underneath your suit,” he confides.
He pulls a pair of white dress gloves out of a red velvet bag trimmed in white fur, sets a pair of spectacles atop his nose and pulls black irrigation boots on over his feet.
“The kids don’t like Sorrels, either,” he says.
Properly attired, he heads off to his gig—at Sun Valley’s Tree Lighting Festival, the Valley Club...
At 87 he’s had plenty of time to refine his techniques.
He’s learned how to hold his hand and how to purse his lips when the picture is snapped. He encourages mothers to sit with their children to calm those who might be a little shy and to give them the opportunity to hear what their children are telling Santa.
And, given the opportunity, he asks the child’s parents if they can tell him something special about their child.
“Maybe it’s something they’ve never said to the child, something the child is hearing for the first time,” he says.
Santa has carefully constructed answers for the questions he gets asked year after year.
“I tell them Santa doesn’t need his sleigh except when he’s delivering presents. Or that I can’t bring the reindeer with me to the ice rink because the reindeer would slip and slide on the ice. They ask me how I get around the world so fast—I tell them that I don’t really know how it works—that the elves take care of the presents and the reindeer get me where I need to go.
“But I always tell them to look hard and they might see the sleigh go through Sun Valley’s fireworks on Christmas Eve and that they need to check their presents for burn marks.”
Oftentimes, a parent will confide something that needs correcting.
“I asked one little boy, ‘Do you think you can try not to wet your pants, anymore?’ Immediately he went home and said, ‘Daddy, I need big boy pants now.’ Another time, I told a little boy that I didn’t want him to hit his sister anymore. His mother told me he did well for two months then started to pull his hand back. Suddenly he looked around as if to see if Santa was around.”
Over the years, “Star Wars” games, Barbie dolls and Cabbage Patch dolls have given way to “Frozen” toys and American Girl dolls.
Santa recalls being puzzled to hear so many children asking for Transformers, only to learn they were cars that turned into monsters.
“What they see in the movies is what they want. That means all of a sudden they want bows and arrows, or “Star Wars” laser sticks, and the manufacturers don’t have time to react to the movie. What today’s games do in the computer age...it’s mind boggling.”
Santa has a treasure trove of sentimental memories, including that of a little girl who told him, “You know, Santa, this is the happiest day of my life.”
One of his most poignant memories is of a girl who sat in his lap and told him she didn’t want her parents to get divorced.
“We talked about how things would get better,” he said. “I always tell the youngsters who are sad that ‘Santa is always there for you.’ ”
Another time a little girl told him she was Jewish.
“I told her, ‘Well, Santa has enough love for everyone.’ ”
He paused.
“I like to think that Santa expresses Christ’s love—that he expresses unconditional love, just as Christ expresses unconditional love. Every once in a while a child comes back years later and tells me how much our conversation meant to them. It’s nice when I have time to have those conversations. I used to get mobbed with kids from one end of the hall in Giacobbi Square to the other. Now they seem to come in a steady stream, but not in crowds like they used to.”
It doesn’t seem to faze the children of Sun Valley when they see Santa walking around in a Hawaiian shirt in summer.
“I’ve overheard kids say, ‘Mother’s that’s Santa in disguise.’ Another time I was at Grumpy’s and I heard an Australian child say, ‘Daddy, you’re right. Santa does drink beer.’ Kids are going to put all the odds in your favor.”
When Christmas is over, Santa’s ready for a break: “It’s a relief to be myself again, to walk into a room and not be the center of attention.”
Santa used to say he would stop doing what he’s doing and turn it over to a younger guy when he was 80. At 87, he now thinks this might be his last year, as his vision is failing and his energy is flagging.
“But the Valley Club always signs me up in February and that encourages me to think: Maybe I can make it one more year. And, they send a chauffeur to pick me up. So they make it very easy.”