SANTA RECEIVES HIS MISSION

My dad loved Christmas! It was his favorite time of the year. He loved the music and the Christmas carols and the lights and the food and decorating the house for the holidays. We didn’t have a big house, so there wasn’t a lot of decorating we could do, but every year Dad would have a Christmas photo taken that he would then print at his print shop for us to send to our friends and family. I remember people would be so impressed to receive a custom Christmas card before color cards became so popular or personal photo cards. I remember one particular card was a photo of my brother and me sitting in front of our fireplace with a plastic Santa Claus between us.


On Labor Day weekend of 1962, my dad and his brother made a trip to Camp Lejeune Marine Base to pick up his brother’s two sons, who had just gotten out of the Marine Corps. I remember Dad talking to me the morning before he left about how he really didn’t want to be gone from us for the holiday weekend, but his brother wanted him to ride along. Dad couldn’t drive, he never had, but he felt he could at least keep his brother company. So with reluctance he bid us, “goodbye.” That was the last time I would see him, because on the return trip, all four of the men were killed in a head-on collision when a truck hit them after passing another vehicle. I wasn’t even able to see him again because they had closed-casket funerals due to the severity of their injuries.


I guess my childhood ended on that Labor Day weekend as I realized I was the “man of the house” now, being the older brother--I was 15-- and that I would have to take care of my mother and my little brother.


As Christmas came around that year, my Methodist Youth Fellowship group decided to provide a Christmas party for a mission church in our town, and they asked for a volunteer to be Santa Claus. People had always made fun of me for being overweight, so almost as a joke, I was elected to be Santa. Deep down inside, though, somehow I felt like the fake beard and suit would cover up the hurting person inside, and if I could bring happiness to others, then maybe that would fulfill the loneliness that had invaded my soul.


So, for Christmas of 1962, I put on my first Santa Claus suit and made my “grand entrance” at the Beddington Street Mission in High Point, N. C. carrying a hand-cut cedar Christmas tree on my back and a big bag of toys for the children. The rest of the members of the youth group followed and made decorations with the children of construction paper link chains to decorate the tree. Santa passed out presents to all of the children while the other youth group members served refreshments. Little did I know that qualifying to be Santa because of my size was the beginning of a lifelong ministry.


I had been given a mission for my life, even though I didn’t realize it at the time, and in the process God had chosen a most unlikely person to be His messenger of unconditional love and acceptance through a fat kid dressed up like Santa Claus. God had chosen, just like He did in the Bible, a common, ordinary person to do an extraordinary job. Accepting the challenge and the mission was going to be up to me.


Forty-two years later, in 2004, I was interviewed by a newspaper reporter for a story in my hometown paper. During the interview, the reporter asked me if I thought my dad would be proud of me. Tears immediately welled up in my eyes because no one had ever asked me that question, and I had been afraid to ask it of myself. As I began to answer, I told the reporter the following story.


I had been invited to be Santa in Laurens, S. C. for a dear friend who had painted several portraits of me. Not wanting to make the trip by myself, I invited my eight-year-old grandson, Robby, to go with me. With a father’s wisdom, my son Rob suggested that he would like to go too; he knew Robby would be a “handful” if I was by myself. The weekend was a wonderful bonding experience for all three of us.


One night while we were all three enjoying a bucket of chicken after a long day, Robby said to his father, “Just think, Dad, we’ve got Robert Clifton Snider the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th all together in one place for a whole weekend!” To that revelation I responded, “You know Robby, I feel like Robert Clifton Snider, Sr. is here too!”