Beloved mall Santa inspires toy drive after his death
One of the most well-known and beloved citizens of Winnipeg, Canada — a man who dedicated his life to playing the role of Santa year-round in his community and even on the silver screen — passed away on Oct. 31. To honor his life, some of the people closest to him are organizing a toy drive to inspire others to assume his gift-giving duties this Christmas.
Brian Sanderson worked in the aerospace industry before finding his true calling in his retirement. After accepting a gig taking photos as Santa at Winnipeg’s Polo Park mall about 20 years ago, he quickly realized it wasn’t just the suit that fit him to a T, but the entire Kris Kringle persona — so he simply decided to be Santa all year.
His partner of 11 years, Lillian Harrison, who performed alongside him as Mrs. Claus, told Canada’s Chronicle Herald that Sanderson always embodied the spirit of Santa. She said that in his younger years, “Santa was magic, and he just wanted to bring that magic to other people.”
Soon, Santa Brian, as Sanderson became known, was booked solid. When he wasn’t in Santa’s Grotto at Christmastime, he performed at retirement homes, community centers and holiday parties, and the Santa role overlapped into his daily life. According to the Chronicle Herald, he even carried candy canes with him every day of the year in case a child recognized him, and grew out his real beard many years after a child tugged at his fake one. He realized if he was going to be Santa, he had to do it all the way.
Santa Brian had become such an endearing figure that he even “ho-ho-ho”-ed his way into movies like Beethoven’s Christmas Adventures and Home Alone: The Holiday Heist, the fifth film in the Home Alone franchise. It was in the film community that he met casting director Shelly Anthis; they worked together on the 2016 Hallmark movie It’s a Wonderful Wife.
“When you met Santa Brian you felt like he knew you your whole life,” Anthis told Canada’s CBC. “He just had this gleam in his eye.”
Inspired by the life of Santa Brian, who died at age 77, Anthis decided to set up a toy drive. With the full support of Sanderson’s family — which includes three children, a stepson, 12 grandchildren and seven great-grandchildren — Anthis and her volunteer “elves” are collecting new, unwrapped presents for kids and teens at shelters, youth at-risk groups and hospitals. So far, she has collected about 300 gifts that the team, along with Harrison as Mrs. Claus, will hand out in the week leading up to Christmas.
Santa Brian’s family told CBC that their dad, also known as Gramps, “would be honored to see toys donated to children in his name.” They shared that gifting toys was one of his favorite parts of the job. He would even study toy catalogs to make sure he was up on the latest and greatest, but he would try to steer kids away from expensive gifts like smartphones and iPads, which might cost parents a lot of money to maintain.
“He would say he wasn’t sure if the elves had enough parts for those toys, and if it was a cellphone, he asked the child how they would pay the bill,” Santa Brian’s daughter, Kathy Bailey, told the Chronicle Herald. “He felt that Santa shouldn’t promise something parents may not be able to afford or didn’t want their child to have. This way they could make that decision themselves.”
But Santa Brian’s “family” extended far and wide. Peter Havens, the general manager for Polo Park mall, told CBC, “His warm heart and kind nature has been a cornerstone of our Santa experience for well over 20 years.” And on Santa Brian’s online memorial, members of the community are sharing warm memories as they mourn a major loss.
“We can truly say that we have not met a person with a bigger heart,” one person wrote.
“Brian was a great Santa and even a greater person,” another added.
Anthis is confident that the toy drive — which has inspired hundreds of Winnipeg citizens to donate gifts — will be a proper homage to the generous spirit of the Santa Brian she remembers.
“I would take my son to go see him … and I would run into Brian so many times after that,” she told CBC. “He would always ask for the kids by name. He knew and remembered everything. He had such a magical memory.”
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