Westbrook Santa has holiday spirit in the bag
Photo/Brandon McKenney
An eager band of elves gets instructions from Santa, who, when he isn't bringing joy to children around the world, is busy making electrical repairs David Collins
Santa Claus has quite a commute.
I’m not referring to that one night a year in late December when he travels tens of thousands of miles on a flying, toy-laden sleigh. No, I’m referring to his gig 3,000 miles from his home at the North Pole appearing several times during November and December in downtown Portland’s annual Christmas celebration.
One Saturday in late November found Santa — aka Kris Kringle, aka Father Noel, aka David Collins from Westbrook — departing the Casco Bay ferry on a sunny morning to parade through Portland’s Old Port on his way to a meet ‘n greet with giggling swarms of eager children.
The children would have been disappointed to know that the jolly ol’ St. Nick they whispered their secret Christmas wishes to that day was actually a 55-year-old electrician.
Dave Collins has run Collins Electric and Alarm from his home for more than 30 years. He first donned a Santa suit for the holiday season 29 years ago for a high school holiday fair. These days, he does a lot of appearances at church functions, day cares and parties.
And this year has been Collins’ busiest to date because of a prime Santa score — to be the jolly one for the Portland Downtown District’s “Twelve Days of Christmas” buy-local juggernaut. Despite that job, Collins says the demand overall for Santas is down this year.
Why? He’s not sure. Maybe even Santa isn’t immune to the downturn. Maybe it’s because Santa Claus and Christmas and their religious origins have become politically incorrect. Collins thinks the latter would be unfortunate. Before he took the job in downtown Portland, Collins made sure he would be allowed to bellow “Merry Christmas” to the kids instead of a watered down “Happy Holidays.” “I told them that wasn’t happening,” Collins says.
Though he’s invested significant time and thousands of dollars in his Santa Claus impersonations over the past 29 years, Collins doesn’t consider himself a professional Santa Claus. He typically doesn’t take money for his Santa services because, well, that would be more Grinch than Kringle. In fact, when he thinks about it, he says he’s probably operated at a loss as Santa if he considers the days off from work and the $800 he dropped in 2003 for his red velvet Santa suit. But Collins, true to his calling, doesn’t do it for the money — he does it for the children. “I do it because I get more than I give, believe it or not,” he says.
Collins says the Portland Downtown District is paying him $50 an hour for his Santa services, and he’s using that money to buy costumes for Mrs. Claus (Collins’ daughter) and his elves (sons and daughters of a contractor Collins works for). If he has any money left over, Collins plans to pay the elves a small stipend.
The business of being Santa can be a lucrative one. Unlike Collins, who’s an occasional Santa-for-hire, there are businesses that rent out professional Santas to shopping malls and holiday parades. There are websites like www.genuinesanta.com and www.realsantas.com where you can rent a Santa. There’s even an Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, which Collins is not a member of because his is an ersatz beard. “I don’t look like Santa Claus, unfortunately,” he says. “There are some that do. I envy them sometimes. But it’s the rest of the year I don’t want to” look like Santa.
Collins says he’s never considered being a professional Santa. To enter the Santa big leagues would take a bigger investment than Collins is willing to make. Collins has seen Santa suits with real rabbit fur, a hair piece woven with human hair and a real leather belt and boots that cost as much as $2,000. “Personally, I couldn’t afford it,” he says.
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