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Ed Butchart is not your standard issue, shopping mall Santa Claus. His white fluffy beard is real. He calls his wife "Mrs. Claus." And when people stare at him in restaurants and approach him, he signs his autograph: "Remember to be good/Love, Santa." Instead of the North Pole, he is based in Georgia. And instead of a toyshop, he operates a 65,000 square-foot workshop where he and his "elves" refurbish old wheelchairs and other medical equipment to give away to the disabled. He not only looks the part, he lives it.

Butchart, 67, was in his earlier life a journalism major at the University of North Carolina, a Marine, and a medical-equipment salesman. In his later years, he heard a higher call—to live out his Christian witness through the character of Santa Claus.

The idea might seem like a contradiction, especially for believers who want to keep the Christ in Christmas, and so eschew the Santa business. My husband and I were numbered among them years ago when our three boys were younger. Some called us killjoys. But it could also be argued that the Santa myth itself has a negative effect. Butchart, who has studied these things, estimates that 75 percent of kids up to age 3 are terrified of Santa. "I've been slapped, punched, kicked, head-butted, and generally abused," he says.

Then there is the less measurable disillusionment factor when kids inevitably learn the truth and stop believing. In some ways perpetuating the Santa story teaches our children not to believe in anything, especially when those they trust the most—Mom and Dad—were co-conspirators in the deception.

Ed Butchart's Santa, however, challenges these notions. He has found a way to redeem the myth and point people back to the Real Magic of Christmas. In this sense, Butchart has revived the same spirit of the fourth-century bishop, Nicholas of Myra, whose heroic acts of charity inspired the modern Santa legend. Tom Brokaw, in a 1992 nbc Nightly News report, observed that Butchart's Santa "can only be described as the real thing." He makes even skeptics and Santa abstainers like me want to believe.

'Santa loves you, too'
Before becoming Santa, Butchart was never comfortable around children. In 1986, touched by the plight of a church friend who had cerebral palsy, he left his lucrative job as a salesman and launched Friends of Disabled Adults and Children (FODAC), a ministry that provides refurbished wheelchairs and other equipment to the physically and mentally challenged.

One Christmas in the late 1980s, as Butchart's ministry was getting off the ground, his kindly features and exceptional girth prompted someone to ask if he would be the Santa for a church Christmas program. This began the metamorphosis.

Butchart decided to grow his own beard for the next year's event. A holiday stint at a local mall followed, and soon he was in high demand throughout the Atlanta area.

The defining moment, when Butchart understood what it meant to be Santa Claus, came one day early in his career. He saw someone in line "bouncing from one foot to the other, wringing her hands as fast as she could, so excited that she could hardly contain herself." She was 35 years old. As the woman took her place on Santa's lap, her mother said, "You don't have to mess with her. She's retarded, ain't never been right!"

Butchart smiled. "She is also a child of God," he said, "and he loves her as much as he does any of his children, and so does Santa." The 35-year-old sat precariously on his lap and told him that she would love a Barbie doll.

On another occasion at a local mall he saw two people watching him from the second level. It was a mother and her daughter, a young girl in a wheelchair. He waved for the girl to come sit on his lap. They hesitated, but he persisted. They finally came.

"It was clear that she was quite impaired with multiple disabilities," says Butchart. "Her wheelchair had several position devices to help her maintain good posture. She had a nasogastric tube in her nose."

"This is Lindsey Ann Brown, Santa," her mother said. "She is 4 years old and she loves Santa Claus." Butchart asked if he could put Lindsey in his lap. "You don't have to," the mother said. "Yes, I do," he said. "Santa loves Lindsey, too."

He loosened the butterfly brace on Lindsey's chest, lifted her onto his lap, and cradled her head with one hand. He told the photographer to take a full package of pictures for free.

When he returned Lindsey to her wheelchair, he noticed the positioning pads needed readjustment. The mother said they couldn't afford to have it done, so he wrote down a name and number and told her to "call this guy tomorrow and he will adjust it for free."

Lindsey's mom discovered that "guy" was Butchart in his capacity as president of FODAC. During that visit, Lindsey's mother explained that they hesitated the day before because a year earlier they had waited in line for almost an hour to see Santa, only to be told, "No way, I'm not about to touch that kid."

When Butchart heard that story, he vowed he would never besmirch the name of Santa the way that cruel impostor had done. He has taken special care to embrace handicapped children and married his role as a supplier of medical equipment to his year-round vocation as Santa.

"You're either going to play the role all the time or destroy the good image of Santa," he told me. "And when you look like me, you cannot escape that role."

How reindeer fly
FODAC receives donations of wheelchairs, walkers, prostheses, beds, and other equipment; refurbishes them; and then gives them away. Butchart estimates that FODAC has given equipment to more than 30,000 disabled people in 51 countries and 35 states, which doesn't include family members whose lives have also been helped.

He sees no contradiction between his embodiment of the myth and the Christian view of Christmas. "Children live mostly in a fantasy world, and you can appeal to them more with fantasy than with reality," he says. "Santa Claus is a good place for them to learn about the unconditional love they will eventually understand comes from Christ."

Still, he rejects aspects of the secular mythology. It vexes him that parents use Santa to coerce good behavior from their children. Instead he encourages boys and girls to "be good" because "Santa loves them and that's how they love him back." He says, "That helps kids and adults understand that Christ loved them enough to die for them, and they should love him back by being the best person they can be."

Children regularly ask him how reindeer fly and how he squeezes down every chimney on Christmas Eve. He responds with a story: "On Christmas night, many years ago, God proved how much he loved the world when he sent us Jesus. And later, Jesus proved how much he loves us when he died on the cross. So that night, when God gave us Jesus, all the love in the world came together in an explosion of power. That's when wonderful things happen. Reindeer can fly and Santa can go down chimneys."

He is undaunted by the fear that disillusionment will overtake those who once believed. "I'm absolutely convinced that total believers who become doubters and then unbelievers still understand that you can be somebody else's Santa when you give of yourself unconditionally, expecting nothing in return. By being somebody's Santa Claus, you're emulating Christ."

For more information about Fodac, call (770) 491-9014 or visit www.fodac.org.

Copyright © 2002 by the author or Christianity Today International/Today's Christian magazine (formerly Christian Reader).
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