Christmas Special
Ian | Akaroa
Ever wondered what Christmas looks like from Santa’s perspective? Every Christmas for 61 years Ian has fulfilled the “duty” of Santa, spreading joy to communities across the country. It’s a role he treasures.
My main occupation now that I’m retired, is a seasonal job. Which involves a beard. Which I have one. Haircut a year and beard trim a year in, round about January of each year, which means that the beard is suitable for Father Christmas and Santa. And this will be my sixty-first year of playing or doing the duty, as I call it, the duty of Father Christmas, which is wonderful. I enjoy it, and thousands of kids as well as their parents seem to enjoy it as well.
Started out just as the family, because my wife was one of a very big family, and her mother had eleven brothers and sisters, and her father had ten brothers and sisters, so the uncles and aunties falling out of the eaves everywhere. But nonetheless, I enjoyed it so much.
And word soon got round that I started doing it for the church and so on, and it was somebody else heard about it, and my job with British Petroleum took me all around New Zealand, and wherever I was at Christmas, the kindergarten that the kids were going to or whatever, they all got Santa.
I just enjoy it. I get so much fun out of the thing. It’s not just the children. I do the old people’s home, and they all want to sit on my knee as well.
