OURAY — “These darned boots are slick,” Santa gripes as he struggles through a thigh-high snowdrift under the weight of a bulging canvas bag. And that dang cellphone is going off again.
‘Tis quite a hectic night before Christmas.
But Santa wouldn’t be anywhere else on this night, even though he’s already had pages and pages of computerized lists to check twice, an avalanche of gifts to keep straight, and many stockings to count before the first ho-ho-hos boom outside a front door and it is yanked open by eager little hands.
“It’s Santa!” children shout as Santa stomps in, beard a tad askew and glasses all steamed. And, as always, some babies burst into tears. Toddlers hide behind their parents’ legs. And older children beam.
The magic still works after 80 years of an entire squadron of hard-working Santas heading into the snow-sparkled night to visit hundreds of kids — and kids at heart — across Ouray County.
“Santa, you just brought me to a second childhood right now,” says 92-year-old Barbara Spencer, who gave Santa a grateful hug after telling him she still remembers his first visit when she was just a girl.
“Santa, would you like some empanadas?” asks Lydia Trujillo as she welcomes Santa into her warm family-stuffed home for the 51st year. She gives him a seat of honor and watches as he passes out pogo sticks, PlayStations and stuffed animals.
A yuletide tradition
Santa’s busy night-of-nights shift began at the Ouray Elks Lodge No. 492, where it looked like backstage at a North Pole fashion show.
Half a dozen Santas shrugged into their big red coats and slipped into size-XXL red pants. There was a tossing around of beards and big patent belts.
Some Santas needed no help with their physiques. Others had to be plumped up until their bellies shook like pillows full of feathers.
Then they scattered in their candy-and-toy-laden SUV “sleighs” with their “elf” drivers, GPS navigational aids at the ready and naughty-and-nice lists clutched in white-gloved hands.
As far as anyone here has been able to determine, there is no other town that has a troop of volunteer Santas to canvass homes — and even hotel rooms — on Christmas Eve.
“It’s one of those things you don’t hear of much in the world anymore,” said reindeer/driver Jim Pettengill.
When the tradition started here in 1928 — as close as local historians can pinpoint it — Ouray was often isolated in winter.
The Million Dollar Highway had been opened over Red Mountain Pass four years earlier, but that highway and the road leading north of Ouray were often buried under avalanches or impassable under feet of new-fallen snow.
Local lore has it there was quite a snowstorm that Christmas Eve, and a family traveling through the area in a wagon became stranded.
One of the children pinned a note to the wagon reading, “Sure hope you find us tonight, Santa.”
A group of miners coming to town from the Camp Bird Mine happened on the wagon and went to get help at their Elks Lodge — a center of life in this town then and still today.
They found shelter for the stranded travelers. Then they gathered toys and treats from lodge members and delivered them to the family.
The next year, some of those Elks members decided that was a nice way to mark Christmas Eve. They sent out members dressed as Santas to visit local children. By the early 1930s, the local newspaper was reporting on the “tradition” of the Santa Claus visits.
The Santas continued to volunteer for duty through the Depression, World War II, a first-man-on-the-moon, and more downs than ups in the silver and gold mines that dot the surrounding San Juan Mountains.
The Santas worked their yuletide magic as a Christmas spirit once satisfied by fruits and nuts and simple wooden toys evolved to one stoked by video games, talking robots and personalized, Christmas-colored M&Ms.
One thing never changed.
“The reaction of the kids is so heartwarming,” said Warren Ruby, a land surveyor for the city of Denver and onetime Ouray Santa.
Modern, savvy Santas
The Santas have grown more savvy over the years. They now save gas and time by splitting the Santa squadrons between Ouray and neighboring Ridgway.
They hold a Yule Night at the Elks Lodge a few weeks before Christmas so kids can sit on Santa’s lap and present their Christmas wishes. Parents are invited to eavesdrop. They can then visit the nearest mall and e-mail the lodge with directions like “the presents are in a bag on the side of the door” or “look in the back seat of the Ford Excursion in the driveway.”
All the Santas have to do is jingle and ho-ho-ho their way into the homes magically bearing the proper gifts.
Manette Steele, the exalted ruler of the Elks Lodge, who was charged this year with keeping all the Santas jolly, in the right places and well- stocked with stockings filled with small gifts and treats, said donations came from as far away as Denver.
Candies filled boxes, baskets and cooking pots as the Elks bar became the Santas’ workshop for a night. Toys covered every table in sight.
Some of the Santas are old hands. They have been at the job for decades. But nowadays more have been playing the jolly old elf for only several years as the tradition turns over to a new generation.
Ridgway gas repairman Danny Wesseling just completed his third year and said doing his Christmas Eve Santa duty has become the highlight of Christmas — and a way to truly find the Christmas spirit.
Last year, a mother called the lodge and said she and her husband had been out of work for six months, and she didn’t know how they were going to get the toys their kids wanted.
Wesseling drove to the Wal-Mart in Montrose and bought a Thomas the Tank Engine and a Lightning McQueen car, and Santa delivered them to two beaming little boys.
Bus driver, volleyball coach and school food service director Steve Martinez has perfected an enviable ho-ho-ho after seven years. He had a good role model.
“I remember when I was just this big,” he says, holding a gloved hand waist high. “I remember when Santa came to the door.”
That leads to a point of argument about the Santa program: Who is the magic strongest for — the adults who get to be a beloved Santa or the children who see him walk in their front doors in blasts of frigid air and bursts of belly laughs?
The kids’ eyes and their hugs say it’s best for them. But the Santas who make their way up and down the tilting mountain roads trailing clouds of snow say they get more jollies than they can even say.
They get to put the merry into many Christmases.
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com
