These Times

An interview with Santa Claus

Kirk Ericson | Dec 26, 20240

I talked to Santa Claus on the telephone Sunday morning. After spending 40 minutes with Santa, I was left with a feeling of joy and optimism, which is always nice.

You know what else is nice? Interviewing someone who gives you more usable quotes than you can use. It makes this job so much easier.

Bob Partlow is a former newspaperman I worked with at The Olympian. He was the political reporter for the paper, stationed on the Capitol Campus, and I often copy-edited his stories. He quit the paper after an unmerry run-in with an editor — which was not rare for him — and then he took a job with the state working in foster care. After he retired from the state, he became Santa Claus in 2013.

“I’ve had three careers,” Bob said. “I worked as a reporter, in foster care and now I’m Santa Claus, and I can say I’ve loved all the jobs I’ve had. I loved being a reporter; most of it was good. You have freedom and independence, but I didn’t much care for the upper-level editors. They were definitely on the naughty list.”

Bob came to Santa Clausing because of an encounter at a funeral.

“I was at [former Washington Gov.] Booth Gardner’s funeral and there was a guy parked next to us,” Bob said. “I had a long white beard and he said I should be a Santa. He told me about an organization called NORPAC [Santas of the Pacific Northwest] and he invited us to go to the annual summer get-together … I signed up, and I’m on the board now.”

Bob’s a busy Santa. He’s had at least three dozen visits this year — he said he prefers the word “visits” instead of “gigs” or “jobs” — and several Santa visits lie ahead. He went to a day care Friday, and the morning I talked to him, he had a visit scheduled for a house party that night. When I suggested we meet for coffee, he replied, “It will have to be in January.”

As with most matters in life, when you give, you get. It’s the line in the Beatles’ song “The End”: “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.” A similar sensation seems to be working with this Santa Claus.

“I think I get more,” Bob said of his Santa encounters with children. “And I think kids get a lot out of Santa … When I worked at the mall on a five-hour shift, it’s like a five-hour improv. You have to be able to adjust. I can be creative and have fun with kids and with adults. Say there’s a mom and dad and child. I’ll say, ‘Are you going to leave me cookies this year, because last year all I got was a plate of crumbs. Last year,’ and I’ll point at the dad, ‘Somebody got to those cookies before me.’ ”

I asked Bob whether the commerce that swamps Christmas — and Santa Claus — bothers him.

“I never let that affect me; I don’t think about it,” he said. “From the very first day, with every child, I’m going to treat the child as the first and only child I’m going to see that day. Some kids are scared — we call that ‘Claustrophobia’ — so I want to be welcoming and embracing.”

Then there are the kids who lose their minds when they spy Santa.

“I was working at a mall one year when a kid, maybe 3 or 4 years old, saw me from about 50 to 75 feet away,” Bob said. “He ran as fast as he could and threw himself at me, and I threw him up over my head. It was wonderful. You want to give the kids the experience of seeing Santa. It’s just a fun human experience.”

Kids still ask Santa for presents — sometimes unexpected presents.

“I remember one little girl, maybe she was 6, and she looked like she just walked out of a Disney movie. She had fabulous clothes and sparkly shoes. She was super friendly and only needed one take for the photo. Just a sweet kid. Then I asked her what she wanted for Christmas and she said, ‘A Minion fart blaster.’ ”

But this Santa has heard far more soul-wrenching requests from kids.

“It can be very emotional because many kids are hurting, and you can be a source of comfort because you’re viewed as a warm and caring adult,” Bob said. “One child said his grandma was really, really sick and he just wanted her to live three more days so she could live through Christmas.

“Maybe the most touching was a boy who came up and I asked him what he wanted,” he said. “ ‘I want my dad home for Christmas.’ It wasn’t so much what he said, it was how he said it. He was starting to cry.”

Bob said the boy’s mother told him the father had a restraining order against him.

“It was really emotional. The mother, child and I ended up hugging together and we were all crying. … You wrap your arms around them emotionally and wish the best for them.”

At the end of our Sunday morning phone conversation, I asked Bob to give me his “ho ho ho.” He obliged, and it made me feel better than any “ho ho ho” I’ve heard. It was resonant.

Maybe because he meant it.