See our Santa on TV Chrismas Eve.
Santa on Good Company, WKYC, Christmas Eve, 2024
Message From Santa Claus
HO, HO, HO, Merry Christmas!
Some of you may have seen me around Middlefield this summer. Let me tell you why. I have a home here just outside of town called Santa’s Hide-Away-Hollow. This is my summer home, where I come from the North Pole to warm up during the summer. I built a replica of everything I have back home, so I can continue my work. After building this home away from home, I realized that this is a great place where I can welcome children who really need me, those who are critically ill, terminally ill, and children who might not make it until Christmas. My life is Christmas every day.
We moved into Middlefield 22 years ago to a beautiful 100-acre property. The seller didn’t want it developed into homes, but I explained what I wanted to do and he sold me the property. When we first moved in, it was all a forest. It took us three years to take the trees down, draw lines through maps, and determine how my summer home would look. I wanted it to have an essence of friendliness and fun. It took us a while, but it came together. I welcome kids here from every children’s hospital in the state of Ohio and beyond. Kids travel to me from Columbus, Cincinnati, Dayton, Akron, even Pittsburgh and Chicago, I’ve had children come here before going to the clinic for surgery, so during the same visit, they’ll arrive here first, then they’ll check into the hospital.
We have no salaried staff, only volunteers. Rent, electricity, all the bills, everything, is covered by donations. A lot of Notre Dame students have volunteered for us as well as Chagrin Falls, Solon, and Kenston High Schools.
We have always maintained that this North Pole replica is not going to be a tourist attraction. We so not publish a lot of photos and you can’t see the North Pole from the road, so when people get here, they gasp, they’re totally blown away. When they arrive, they come down into the village, either on a trolley pulled by Mater the tow-truck, or golf carts, and they’re driven into the village. Now they choose one of two roads leading down to a middle road, which takes them directly back to Reindeer Lake where they can fish and enjoy the lake until lunch is ready. Or they can start on Main Street and enjoy ice cream and cookies. We serve lunch on the property from 11:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and everything here is free. Nobody need bring a purse or a wallet because everything is a gift from Santa to their families. And we pay a lot of attention to the siblings simply because they’re often the forgotten children. All the siblings and their families are invited here. Even the grandparents are invited. It’s a day for them to do things they can’t normally do.
In my workshop everything is wheelchair accessible. We have a carousel that was built underground. You have to step up to get on a regular carousel, but ours is flush and it’s got slots for wheelchairs. We built wheelchair swings where a wheelchair rolls into it, and it becomes a swing. We have a train that was built in 1954, and we had it rebuilt with 300 feet of track. It’s got a tunnel and we rebuilt a car with a driver’s seat from a race car. A child can be taken out of the wheelchair, strapped into the seat and ride the train.
We have barbers from Youngstown who come here and volunteer their time so kids can get their hair cut, dyed, braided, or whatever, and we have a nail salon. Dads can even get their beards dyed white, or different colors. One day our barber shop had 84 people in line waiting for haircuts. My workshop always has a line, there has been up to 75 people wanting to tell their wishes and get their picture with Santa. The doors are closed after every family enters so we have some private time. Some families just want to talk and share what they’re going through, or they want advice.
During COVID, I was asked by a couple of organizations to do a zoom visit to their families, handicapped kids, autistic kids and so forth. So we did that. And suddenly, we started getting phone calls from organizations all over the country: New York, New Hampshire, Florida. I did 100 zooms in one year. People wanted me to tell the kids, Christmas was not being canceled.
People are wonderful. No matter where I go in this town, people recognize me. If I’m in a restaurant and a child walks over, I’ll talk to them, and then I’ll send over dessert from Santa Claus. A couple of times my ice cream bill was three times bigger than my lunch bill.
Miracles do happen. I had $30,000 to build the chapel that was going to cost $300,000. And every time I saw parishioners from Holy Angels, who had donated the first $30,000, they asked if it was done yet. I hadn’t started it because I couldn’t finish it. Then there was an urge, we started to build it, we finished it and it’s gorgeous. The pews came from a church in Kentucky. The altar and podiums all came from St. Ambrose when they remodeled. The ceiling timbers came from the Joseph Beard Foundation, who wrote a check out for $70,000. When you walk in, the first thing you notice is how the timbers make the building. I designed the stained-glass window. And then the window maker, who works for the Diocese of Cleveland, donated his time and materials for making and installing it. Believe in the magic of Christmas. Believe that every miracle can happen. Believe this is the best day of your life. I did, and now there’s more than 22 buildings and we hope to build three to five more this year. Believe!
