The long-lost Santa

Of all the different Christmas ornaments and items that would come out each Christmas when I was a kid, there was only one that I still remember - the Santa with the nose that you push and he sings. “Welcome one, welcome all, Santa Claus (pause) is (pause) here!"

The Santa we had was destroyed in a drunken fit of rage when a) I was in high school and b) not at the house. But with the arrival of the internet and, even better, the arrival of internet auction shopping, I’ve been looking around for the Santa. But it’s been a mostly fruitless search - what do you type in as seach terms to get the thing to show up? Singing Santa push nose?

But this year, while in Nashville for Thanksgiving, I tried again and this time, and I’m not sure that I’ve done this before, I just searched images. And lo-and-behold, about 3/4 of the way down the screen, there it was.

Finding it was one thing - finding one that I could buy was another! But just finding it was useful - the one I found had a picture of the box and so I learned a better search was “Santa Door Decoration” and the word ‘vintage’ might help to cut down on the false returns. So I went back out, searched the internet, ebay, nothing. And then one of the search returns had the word ‘etsy’ and I figured I might as well try that

And there it was! But…..it didn’t work - the listing says even with a new battery it wouldn’t work. I figured what the hell, get it and see if it was a simple fix I could figure out or worst-case I had to find someone to repair it. Turns out I couldn’t fix it - but, taking it to a local shop they were able to fix it (a short-term fix, they said they needed to order a new motor for a more permanent fix).

It was really cool to hear it again - and see it work the 5 or 6 times we were able to get it to play at home before it died again. I didn’t realize the Santa would dredge up some very bad memories for my sister of our Dad - but, I think anything from our past runs the risk of that.