Every year, for the last 10 years, Paul Evers has woken up the day after Thanksgiving to begin the ritual of becoming Santa Claus. He dons a plush red suit with ample stuffing, suspenders (added after an unfortunate incident of drooping bottoms) and a thick, curly, white-as-snow beard. Carefully applied makeup helps transform his face into the familiar visage of ol’ Saint Nick with rosy cheeks and a red button nose.
Evers’ wife then drives him to the helicopter pad next to St. Charles Medical Center in Bend because, unlike many a mall Santa, Evers is a Helicopter Santa.
The tradition of flying into the Old Mill area to officially kick off the holiday season goes back at least a decade. However, neither Evers nor representatives from the Old Mill or AirLink — the critical care transportation service that flies Santa in every year — could say when it officially began. The origins are as mysterious as the Santa myth itself. And while it might be gimmicky to fly in Santa to an outdoor mall on the shopping spectacle that is Black Friday, Evers and the behind-the-scenes crew making it all happen sound sincere when they talk about the why behind the event. In the same way, the hundreds of children and adults who gather each year to greet Santa exude excitement, absent irony.
“I’ve had the opportunity to do some pretty cool things in my life,” Evers said the week before his annual Santa landing. Evers is a co-founder of Crux Fermentation Project, CEO and co-founder of Riff (known for its cold brew coffee) and a founding board member at Cultivate Bend, a nonprofit dedicated to growing the natural products consumer packaged goods sector in Central Oregon.
“I’ve appeared on national TV three times with my dad. I was on stage at Carnegie Hall with Pink Martini in front of a packed house, featured along with my son on the ‘Today Show,’ flown an ultralight around Kauai Island. I’ve even exchanged gifts with the Pope… but flying in as Santa Claus, in front of this crowd of people, and being able to hop on the railing and then jump up into the grassy area is the coolest gig I’ve ever had in my life.”
Being Santa is deeply personal to Evers. The youngest of nine kids, the first time Evers dressed as Santa he was 20 years old and did it as a special favor to his mom for the nieces and nephews in his family.
“She was six weeks from passing away, and she gave me a $20 bill and said, ‘Oh, please go buy a Santa suit,'” he said. “That was 43 years ago. And now, every time I play Santa, I think of my mom.”
He also thinks about the responsibility of playing an omniscient being. “My main intention is to have everybody feel like they’re special to Santa, which is a pretty tough job with somebody with limited capacity, you know, as a human being,” he said.
The Landing
Last Friday, Nov. 29, several hundred people gathered once more with eyes trained to the skies looking for Santa’s bright-blue helicopter. Kids and adults bundled up from the chill and crowded the security gates around the makeshift landing pad on the grass beside the Deschutes River and behind the Hampton Inn and Suites parking lot. The gates were an addition this year to keep people farther back from the wind and leaves thrown up by the helicopter’s blades, and also to keep kids from rushing Santa — a not-so-nice tradition.
Dancers from the Central Oregon School of Ballet and teenagers from local high schools tried to entertain the crowd by dancing and handing out candy canes and other goodies. Even Mrs. Claus was on hand for pictures. An ambulance I was riding in, with a blow-up Santa hat askew on its roof, pulled in, playing “Santa Claus is Coming to Town,” and released a few elves from the back. We picked up the three elves, ranging in age from 14 to 16 years old, behind the nearby Red Cross building. It was the first time any of them had rode in an ambulance and they peppered our AirLink escort with questions about the various instruments surrounding us. When they got out of the ambulance, the crowd in front cheered, but over the noise, the one question on repeat was: “Where is Santa Claus?”
At 10am, the first yell went up from the crowd that someone had spotted the tell-tale outline of a helicopter coming from the northeast. Five minutes later, after exactly three laps around the crowd — because three is the magic number — the helicopter landed, and Evers’ Santa jumped out calling, “Ho! Ho! Ho! Merry Christmas!”
After straightening their beanies and clearing their eyes from the wind, dust and leaves, the kids in the crowd started yelling and calling Santa over. One family, despite growing up in Bend, was at the landing for the first time. Taryn Ringseth brought her son Grayson, 8, and daughter Harper, 6, to see Santa land and said that for her daughter especially the experience was magical. Evers eventually made his way over to them and Ringseth snapped a photo of him with her kids.
“I got a picture, and the expression on Harper’s face is so cute,” Ringseth said. “While he was circling around, they could see him, and they were waving the whole time.” Ringseth said she plans to take the kids again next year as a new family tradition.
The Helicopter
Operation Santa Drop is the code name AirLink uses for Santa’s delivery to the Old Mill District. Each year, the helicopter used to transport Santa is supplied by AirLink and run by AirLink pilots and personnel. The coordination of flying Santa from St. Charles to the Old Mill requires a combination of planning and luck. The flight can’t happen if the weather is bad, or the helicopter is needed for an emergency call. But once Evers arrives at the hangar next to St. Charles, the helicopter goes out of service until his landing, at which point it’s put back in service, and the crew is back on call. For a brief time, William Conklin, Santa’s usual pilot, tells me, “Santa is our priority.”
Participating in this yearly ritual is a highlight for many AirLink crew members, says Marta Jaroch, business development executive for AirLink.
“This is something that we absolutely love participating in,” Jaroch said. “Our day-to-day in our role as a critical care transport agency is usually not a fun one for families. It’s usually the worst-case scenario.”
AirLink provides emergency medical transport by helicopter and fixed wing for adult, pediatric and neonatal patients in the most far-flung, rural areas across the state. The job of transporting critical patients and handling life-or-death situations daily is one Jaroch is passionate about supporting, and she appreciates the chance to add some levity to the otherwise heavy responsibilities her crews carry.
“It’s an opportunity to just bring the love and have fun and interact with our community in a way that makes us feel good,” Jaroch said. “Any opportunity we have to get the chopper out and do something exciting, and something that brings joy, we’re happy to do that.”
Conklin, who has flown Evers as Santa for the last decade, says that from his vantage point the landing is growing in popularity.
“Each year the crowds seem to get bigger,” Conklin said. “Last year there were several hundred, not counting dogs… What’s remarkable to me on those times when it’s cold outside is how patient everyone is!”
SantaLand
Following the landing, Evers works the crowd, stopping for pictures, handshakes and hugs as he makes his way to SantaLand for his first picture shift. He is one of a handful of volunteer Santa Clauses who rotate picture-taking shifts at SantaLand in the Old Mill. This year, SantaLand is open from 11am to 5pm every Friday to Sunday until Christmas, and on Monday, Dec. 23.
The location for SantaLand changes each year based on available space at the outdoor mall. This year, it’s being held in the largest space yet: upstairs above Lush Cosmetics. Brianna Holub, event manager for the Old Mill District, is a former set designer. She spent weeks transforming this year’s cavernous space into a multi-room experience complete with a small market area, a mini-theatre playing seasonal cartoons, a place to read and color by the (fake) crackling fire and, of course, a tree-lined set with a throne to take pictures with Santa.
There is also a special project, Tree of Joy, that the Old Mill runs with the Rotary Club of Greater Bend and the Salvation Army to get gifts for families and children in need. There are tags with wish list items that families can pick up from the tree and fulfill. Each year, according to Rotary Club estimates, around 700 children receive gifts through the tree tags and an associated website.
All of this, Holub says, plus the Santa landing is free to the public and done for the community. While guests do have to pay for the professional pictures, Holub and Evers each stressed that just visiting with Santa is free, and if parents want to take their own pictures of their kids, that’s OK, too. They say that getting to meet Santa should be free for all. Care goes into many of the details — even the letters turned in to Santa in the red boxes around the district receive a hand-written response from someone on the marketing team.
Then, of course, there are the special asks that children tell only to Santa. Evers says he tries to be up on the latest games and toys, but those aren’t the requests he remembers.
“I’ve had some really powerful, moving experiences,” Evers said of his time in SantaLand.
“There’s a lot of tension out there in the world, and I’ve had kids who’ve really inspired me because they’re so well-intentioned and just want peace for the world, for their family. A lot of them ask for things for their parents, selfless. And there are just two or three dozen experiences over the years, but it just puts it over the top.”
This article appears in The Source Weekly December 5, 2024.
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