In a small, two-seat helicopter in 1985, Santa’s bells jingled as the helicopter swayed from the fierce winds raging over Newberg, Ore. Santa wasn’t used to flying in a toy-like machine, or, really, flying at all, and the nearing blizzard didn’t calm his jitters.
“My eyes were the size of saucers,” says Don Waddell, 60. “We flew over the town for quite some time, and when we finally were able to land on top of one of the stores, I wondered how I was going to get down.”
A fire truck parked outside of the tall building in Springbrook Shopping Center and raised its ladder to where Santa stood. With his legs wobbling inside his heavy suit, Santa climbed down to a group of cheering children.

For the past 28 years, Waddell has left his cozy home and jeans behind in King City, Ore., to become Santa Claus, working to make Christmas just a bit more magical around Oregon and Washington.
After developing an act as a clown for eight years beginning in 1980, he began playing Santa Claus for friends and family during the holidays. His daughter Nicole Leverich, a journalism graduate of the University of Oregon, believed in her father’s
performing ability and helped start a family business in 1985, where her father acted as a commercial Santa in Newberg.
“He’s an irrepressible personality,” Leverich says. “He’s one of those people who’s great in front of the crowd.”
Waddell began as the community Santa, appearing in the town parade, the local library and other stores around the area. Eventually his Santa career took off, and now he works for Cherry Hill Photo Enterprises, Inc., a corporation that places Santas in more than 300 malls nationwide, including Valley River Center in Eugene.

The idea of a commercial Santa is far from new. Gift-giving has been part of the Christmas tradition since the beginning of the 19th century. With that in mind, stores began advertising Christmas shopping in 1920, and by the 1940s newspapers were creating Christmas supplements with photos of Santa Claus to promote spending. Before long, stores enticed parents and children into their shops with a chance to see a “real” Santa Claus.
“I love every minute of it,” Waddell says. “Working with families and their children brings a lot of joy to the holiday season for me.”
But don’t let Santa’s cheerfulness fool you – mall Santas cheerfully endure some of the most grueling working conditions every Christmas season.
To look like a real Santa, Waddell must take extreme measures. Every year, he sits in a beautician’s chair, his nose wrinkling as a thick layer of bleach is applied to his beard. He braces himself for the pain that will soon ensue as the bleach turns his beard white, burning his skin in the process.
“It feels like battery acid,” Waddell says as he grabs a hair dryer to blow the fumes away from his nose. “I really try to be as close to the real thing as I can for the children.”
Along with the daunting beauty process, Waddell has to wear a padded suit that includes heavy velvet pants and jacket, thick socks and white gloves that remain visible at all times. The entire ensemble creates a human-heater.
“I keep three suits at the mall all the time so I have a suit to change in to,” Waddell says. “They’re just absolutely soaking at the neck and shoulders by the time I get a break.”
And the break conditions aren’t so great, either.
To keep customers and children from running into Waddell when he is not in Santa form, the break room is usually an unused room that’s shielded from everyone. “If I’m lucky, there will be a chair and table; nice things like refrigerators and ventilation don’t exist,” he says.
And let’s not forget the kids.
Back at the shopping center in Newberg, Santa sits in the chair as children climb onto his lap and share what they want for
Christmas. More than 100 children line up to see Santa every day, and one-by-one, each child steps on his feet, sneezes into his neatly groomed beard and attempts to pull it down to see if it’s real. If that’s not enough, the abused Claus also endures crying, whining and unfortunate bodily functions.
“Every now and then, there’s the kid who gets a little too upset, and Santa ends up with vomit across his lap,” Waddell says. “There’s also the little darlings who have problems in the other end, too, and suddenly there’s that feeling of warm dampness.”
Waddell isn’t alone. According to an online survey carried out by Brand IQ, more than 30 percent of mall Santas has had a child “wet” on their lap, and many experience the same stresses at malls across the nation.
To top it off, Santas get paid next to nothing. Most make between $12 and $15 an hour, not near enough to cover an adult’s average standard of living. The hours are grueling, too. Half of all Santas work 180 hours a week, and almost a quarter of them work up to 240 hours weekly, according to the study.
While the conditions may be close to unbearable, there are some definite perks to being the man in red.
“The ladies love Santa,” Waddell says.
Every now and then, Waddell charms the “older gals” at the mall by singing “Oh, You Beautiful Gal” in a barbershop tenor, but most of the time the ladies just flock to him.
At the beginning of his Santa career, Waddell arrived at a sleek apartment complex to entertain children at a corporate party, but soon the children went home and the adult party began.
“They had an open bar and my wife came to take pictures of Santa, and as the evening progressed … did I mention the open bar?” Waddell says, laughing. “The ladies got very friendly and started taking turns dancing with Santa and posing, and putting their hands where they generally don’t belong on Santa Claus.”
But despite all the overzealous women and snot-nosed children, there are many moments worth enduring the chaos.
At the Wenatchee Valley Mall in Washington last year, a little girl was nervous to sit on Waddell’s lap. Talking to the girl’s mother while she calmed her daughter’s distress, he soon learned the family wanted to take a portrait for her husband, who was stationed in Iraq.
“I got to looking and realized we had four generations of ladies here: the great grandmother, grandma, the mother and daughter,” Waddell says. “It meant a lot that they came to see me for the portrait.”
The holiday season is when miracles happen, and Waddell wants to make sure of it. A year after his mother-in-law passed from Alzheimer’s disease in 2002, he made a stop in costume at Ceder Crest Care Center in Tual
atin, Ore., to bring holiday joy to those who were struggling with similar sicknesses.
“Everyone was laughing and singing, but there was one man who hardly noticed,” Waddell says. The elderly man hadn’t spoken in months – he was disconnected with his home back in Germany. Waddell asked the staff to play “Silent Night” and he sang it in German to the man.
“That song connected with him and he started talking and interacting again,” Waddell says. “Those are the things that keep me going.”