The Agenda with Steve Paikin (Audio) - Santa Claus is Coming to Studio
Episode Date: December 18, 2024Christmas is just around the corner. In preparation, The Agenda invites veteran Bayview Village Santa Claus, Ken Jones to discuss how parents all over the country can prepare for one of the biggest mo...ments of the season - their annual family photo with mall Santa. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Transcript
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Christmas, of course, is just around the corner,
and who better to speak to that than Santa Claus himself
or someone playing him anyway.
Ken Jones is a veteran Santa Claus
at Bayview Village in Ontario's capital city
and he's taking a break from his festive duties
to tell us how parents all over the country
can prepare for one of the biggest moments of the season,
that is their annual family photo with Santa.
Lovely to have you here, Santa.
Well, hello Stephen, very nice to see you.
Stephen is what your mother called you,
I believe, when you were on the naughty list.
Is that true?
That may be accurate, yes.
But you are not on that list anymore.
I hope not.
No, no. What have you heard?
Well, I can't divulge.
I can't divulge. May I take my coat off?
It is a bit warm in here.
Yes, Santa, please be comfortable.
Thank you.
Thank you so much.
That is quite the get up.
Yes, it is.
But it keeps me very cozy in this sleigh.
Right.
Now, you didn't make that yourself, did you?
No, Mrs. Claus did, yes.
Of course.
Of course, silly me.
She's very telling.
Yeah.
But you've got the whole nine yards going.
You've got the boots.
We do.
We need the boots in the barn.
The big belt. Yeah. The hat. Yeah. Now, wait a going. You've got the boots. We do. We need the boots in the barn. The big belt.
Yep.
The hat.
Yep.
Now, wait a second.
The hair is not real.
Well.
Sorry, I meant the hair on your head.
Well.
But the beard is real.
Yes.
I don't divulge those kind of personal things.
I think you just did.
But the beard is real.
Yeah.
When do you start growing that?
Usually around the end of August.
So you can be ready to go for now.
And then on December 24th, one hour after we finish,
off it comes.
Is that right?
Yes.
Because Mrs. Claus?
No, I've become 20 years younger.
Oh, OK.
Got it.
Got it.
Ho, ho, ho, ho.
That was well done.
Very good.
Thank you.
I've practiced it.
Now, should I call you Santa, or should I call you Ken?
You can call me whatever you want.
Let's go with Santa.
OK, Santa.
Just since I'm in the garb.
Santa, in which case, well, let me ask the question this way.
Because I know you, Santa, have been at this
for hundreds of years.
But in terms of your responsibility, Santa, at Bayview Village, about 15, this way because I know you Santa have been at this for hundreds of years. Yes.
But in terms of your responsibility Santa at Bayview Village about 15-20 minutes from
the studio, when did that start?
Well my son-in-law Neville Lissack has a very successful talent company called Top Talent
in Newmarket and he asked me after I retired from teaching if I would do a few house parties.
And I said, sure, I'll do that. So I bought a suit and went and did that.
And that was 2009 and Baby Village called him because they had decided not to have a Santa,
but they were going to have two brunches with Santa.
And I got hired to do those two brunches, which
were oversubscribed.
And the community was quite upset because they
wanted to have a Santa.
So he called me the next day.
And he said, can you drop everything
and get over to Beatty Village right away for four hours?
And I said, sure, I can do that.
I had the suit.
And that was 16 years ago.
And you've done it every year since?
Every year since.
And I've missed one day in 16 years.
And now we do 39 straight days from November 16
to December 24 between five and seven hours a day.
39 straight days?
Yes.
As in no weekends off, anything like that?
Not a bit.
No kidding. Do you have a guess as to how many kids have sat on that lap of yours over the years for pictures?
No, I don't.
But I think of the number of flashes in my eyes that I've had.
That's a significant number.
It's got to be thousands.
Oh, for sure.
Easily, thousands.
Per year.
Thousands every year?
Yeah.
Oh, for goodness sake.
Okay. Oh, thousands. Per year. Thousands every year? Yeah. Oh, for goodness sake. OK.
Oh, yes.
Yes.
We can sometimes have over 300 guests in an eight hour period.
When you first started doing this, were you nervous?
I don't remember being nervous because as a teacher
and someone being used to children,
I did daycare music for a while.
I was used to the client.
And so it really wasn't an issue.
Now the clients can be, how do I put this delicately?
They can be a little-
Challenging.
No, I use the word more strong than challenging.
Okay.
They can be a little buggers from time to time, can't they?
Yes.
They want to pull at the hair, pull at the beard, or whatever.
Yes.
And they can also be very nervous between one and three.
And when I do retire from this, I
would like to make a little parent handbook for a guideline
to Santa.
little parent handbook for a guideline to Santa. And parents tell me, we practiced, we watched the movies, we did ho, ho, ho. And of course there's this six foot invisible
fence. And they could stand in line for an hour and get all excited and come up to the fence, so to speak, and
stop and turn around and run the opposite way down the mall.
Does that happen much? Oh yes. It does, eh? Yeah. So what do you do when, because I mean
we've all seen this a hundred times, where a parent puts kid on Santa's lap,
kid starts bawling his or her eyes out, and then what do you do under those circumstances? Well, I used to be, parents were a little easier with,
I'll take the crying picture.
But these days, there's less of that,
and they don't want to upset the children.
So if there is resistance, we always do a family picture first.
So we'll have the family sitting there, and then after that,
if they bring the child to my knee and there's resistance,
I will suggest that we don't do that.
Got it.
And they just do the family picture.
So that's one kind of challenge.
The other kind of challenge, I'm guessing,
is the kid who's a little older and a real smart ass,
and they want to grab at the hair
or pull the beard or something.
What do you do in that case?
Well, nobody's actually pulled the hair.
They do look at the beard.
And when I see them looking there,
I give it a little tug myself.
Yes, it is real.
But the grumpy teenagers, the grumpy teenagers,
I don't want to be here.
Mom's making me be here.
I'd rather be with my friends.
I hope nobody sees me.
So what I like to do is the first thing I tell them is,
you know, this is mom's best Christmas present.
And I try to turn it into that I'm
going to do something nice for my mother by being here
and by giving a smile.
Does that work?
Usually it does.
Yeah, yeah, usually it does.
Now, as far as what kids ask for,
Lego is still very popular.
You probably asked for Lego when you were young, as I did.
The Pokemon cards are big, Barbie dolls are big.
Probably thanks to the movie, that no doubt helped.
For sure.
For sure, for sure. And teenage girls, when they ask for clothes, I tell them,
well, Santa wears the same thing every day.
He's not a fashionista, even though we're at Baby Village.
But gift cards.
The secret is gift cards.
Kids love those.
They do.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Because they can choose their own.
Now, you've obviously had tens of thousands
of conversations with kids.
Yes.
You know, 30 seconds, 60 seconds, 90 seconds, whatever.
Can you recall anything particularly hilarious
or something that some kids said to you at some point?
There is one that stands out years and years ago.
And a 10-year-old boy said, Santa, I'd like a computer.
And this was maybe 2011.
So kids and computers weren't, kids
didn't have many computers.
And I said, well, why do you want a computer?
And he said, because the police took mine.
That's great. How do you want a computer? And he said, because the police took mine. That's cruel.
How do you answer that, other than saying,
well, Santa never promises?
Right.
Did you get the story?
I mean, did you talk to parents?
No, no, no.
We left that well alone, well alone.
So you found the one drug kingpin 10-year-old right there
who's computer taken by the police?
Possibly, yes.
We did have a little girl that used to come dressed
as a chicken every year.
I see.
And another one that asked for only bubble wrap.
I remember her every year.
Bubble wrap is fun.
It is.
It is, yes.
Now, as far as people coming back, I have this year,
I have met three 18-year-olds that started when they were two.
Oh.
And they're going into university next year.
And the parents last year, I saw the albums.
And there's 16 pictures of me holding the baby.
And there's this basketball player standing next to me.
Isn't that great?
It's wonderful.
You don't actually, when you see them,
you don't actually remember them from the previous year.
There are many that I do.
You do?
Yes.
Huh.
Yes.
Pretty cool.
Now, Santa, what happened during COVID?
Like, could you still do this during COVID?
We did, Baby Village set up a video Zoom call.
And people pre-registered and we had a nice
five-minute chat and I knew the name of their dog and I knew what they wanted
for Christmas and I knew what school they went to and so on it was wonderful.
That's pretty cool. Now what do you do, look this is sad, but what do you do when
perhaps a low-income family comes to you and the kid sits on your lap and says, I want X, Y, and Z,
and those are perhaps expensive gifts,
and you know the family is not going to get that for them
because they can't afford to do it.
How do you handle that?
The first thing is that I always say,
what is on your wish list?
Santa never promises.
And I listen to what they're asking for and
I'll say well you know that that is a lot of that takes a lot of time for the
elves to make that if I didn't bring that is there something that would be a
little a little easier for me to make?
So you're playing let's make a deal with them.
I'm trying to just sort of gin them down a little bit, if I can put it that way.
I see.
Good friends.
Now, okay, like Christmas once upon a time was kind of a purely Christian holiday.
But nowadays, you know, the Christmas time of year is something that you don't have to be Christian, obviously, to enjoy.
So how do you handle it when kids from other faiths end up on your knee?
And they all, I see Muslim kids, I see Jewish kids, kids of every race, every culture, and
it's all about the generic Christmas.
But a little boy asked me yesterday,
only yesterday, for the first time,
he said Santa, you have two Christmas trees next to you
and there's no star on the top
because obviously in his house he had a star.
And I said, well, Baby Village is celebrating
the event of Christmas
and you celebrated as a Christian holiday.
He was old enough to understand this, and I knew I could explain it that way.
But when my Jewish friends come and see me, they wish me a Merry Christmas if I know that
they don't celebrate.
And sometimes they tell me that we don't celebrate Christmas and I ask what they celebrate and
Then I wish them that that greeting I sometimes jokingly say I I know Hanukkah Harry
And he's going to bring you a good gift. So there is a Hanukkah Harry is there apparently is
You know if we were on Fox TV right now
Yes
we would no doubt be talking about the war on Christmas because every year Fox seems to think there's a need to gin up a lot of public anger about the war
on Christmas.
Do you see it out there?
Do you see society somehow sort of conspiring to remove Christmas from our daily lexicon?
You know, in 2009, when Baby Village decided not to have a Santa, and nobody could say the
C word, Christmas, I'm so happy that has changed.
And it is a universal word that means doing nice things for others.
The last thing I say to the kids is, if you do nice things, you'll get nice things. And try to put that idea into their heads
that this is about giving.
Do something nice for mom.
Make her a little Christmas card.
And quite often, they'll say, we already have.
And they're all excited about that.
But it's good to have that feeling that everybody
is celebrating Christmas no matter what the
culture is.
Now, there is one thing that has distressed me a little bit this year, and this is society.
A couple of kids, when I've asked, what is on your wish list, they say to me, I want
my mom and dad to get along.
I don't want my parents to fight.
I want my house to be happy.
And I can only say to them, well, you have to contribute to that.
And you have to be part of that so that you can help.
That's a bit heartbreaking, isn't it?
It is. That's a tough one.
It is.
It is.
It's difficult.
Santa, what are you going to get for Christmas this year?
Rest.
On the 25th, in my chair, feet up, a little bit of this
and a little bit of that.
Well, why wait?
Let's dive into the cookies right now, shall we?
Sounds lovely.
Thank you.
Merry Christmas to you, and thanks for coming in today.
A pleasure. Can I have one more ho, ho, ho? Oh, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, ho, shall we? Sounds lovely, thank you. Merry Christmas to you, and thanks for coming in today. A pleasure.
Can I have one more ho ho ho?
Ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho ho