This is an interview with Jack Espey who shares a profound experience in not playing Santa, but actually becoming Santa. This is a beautiful story of how Jack found an incredibly joyful and fun ministry for both children and adults. This year, he started as Santa on the Sunday before Thanksgiving and will be at L.A.’s Grove Mall until (you guessed it) Christmas Eve.
Jack: From past experience, if I went into the audience, people literally… it’s like Seagulls coming in… they just appear, and cameras come out. I’ve heard “Santa” shouted in almost every language. I’d be turning and I’d see camera phones and digital cameras, and people wanting to touch Santa, and for me to be there right in the midst of them! There’s an energy that comes on when I go into Santa, I can feel it now. I don’t know if I can describe it, but I can feel it going out and touching people and coming back and touching me.
I had just kept asking to be a channel for Spirit, to let it go through me and touch all these people. There is magic in Santa. And the children’s eyes get so excited, and the adults, there is a sparkle that comes into their eyes and they become a child for a while.
NDH: Did you ever imagine that this would be a part of your ministry?
Jack: No. I will take you back in history. When I was twenty, Christmas had no feeling for me there was nothing I was excited about; there was no magic to it. I heard about a family. Their father was an engineer and they were used to nice Christmases. He’d had some physical injuries and was in the hospital. And I heard that the… I’m going to get teary-eyed again… the ten year old girl told her six year old sister that they’ve been bad and Santa wasn’t coming this year. I went. My brother-in-law was working in a retail store. I went and got a tea set. I got a doll from my mother who made dolls. I got a blowup Santa and I don’t remember all the gifts that I got. I went down to their home on Christmas Eve and knocked on the door. Their mother opened the door and she did not know me from Adam. I said “Hi, I just wanted you to know that there is a Santa.” I brought this blow up Santa. And they had this little tree, a scrawny little tree with hardly any decorations on it. And the kids were just standing there with these large eyes. And I gave the young girl a tea set. And I gave the older girl this doll. Well, God’s coincidences. The color of the doll’s dress matched her bedroom colors. And this eleven year old girl, her eyes got so large. And the mother didn’t know what to think. That brought the magic of Christmas into me. As I left, I said, “I just wanted you to know that there is a Santa.” And I walked out. And, to this day, I don’t know how she found out who I was. I was going to college in Austin Texas. And about a month later, I got a card. It was a thank you card. And it said, “I just wanted to know that we believe in Santa and angels.” Well, it got me. So, at various times I have done Santa. I’ve had a beard for almost 40 years. And I used to have to spray it white to be Santa.
One year, in San Antonio, a lady asked if we could do something for the barrio. She said that she would like to have it at her house but that she was a little embarrassed because she didn’t have a door for her bathroom. So Jim, my bother-in-law at the time, and I got a door and a lock set. We got presents and for her, we gave her the present of a bathroom door. She had tears in her eyes. We had fixed dinner, the people came in, and they were so polite and so quiet. At one point, I went into the bedroom and used some spray to color my hair and beard white. I went out and we had a gift for each of the children. We had little gifts for each of the adults. As we were giving the gifts to the children, the adults were getting more vocal. They were having more fun. As I gave those adults something, they became a child. It got so animated in this room, people talking, people laughing, kids and adults. I learned a lesson
