A CHRISTMAS MEMORY
Tim Cavender, who has played Santa for 41 years, said his father wasn’t Santa, but he created a “sense of wonder” during the Christmas season, and it’s something he wants to share with children today. He recalled one Christmas Eve in particular when he was about 5 years old, and when they were visiting family nearby and heard a jet plane over the house, his father said, “That must be Santa and his reindeer.” Moments later, they heard dogs barking at their house, and his dad exclaimed, “Yes, that must be Santa going into our home!” When they arrived home, the Christmas presents were all around the tree.
“I will never forget that special moment in my life. I love to see a child’s sense of wonderment. … Some of our greatest visionaries believed in fantasy and the impossible. Walt Disney had a career that dealt with fantasy, and the Wright brothers stepped beyond the imagination to create a vehicle that could fly. The imagination is a great source for making the impossible possible and for turning dreams into reality.”
Tim Cavender initially resisted playing the role of Santa back in 1974.
He was a sophomore at Cherokee High School at the time, and he just knew his friends would make fun of him — laugh in his face. Slightly heavy, dressing up as Mr. Claus would give his peers easy fodder for teasing.
Still, he went ahead and dressed up in the red Santa suit, and to his surprise, classmates celebrated the transformation of this young man into St. Nick. A few even lined up to get their picture taken with Santa.
Over the years, Cavender, of Ball Ground, has grown into a quintessential Santa, wearing custom-made garb, complete with a red velveteen suit with sparkling stars and fabric imported from Germany, perfecting his technique, and ultimately filling the very big black patent-leather boots of Santa.
As Cavender embraces the role of Santa this Christmas for the 41st consecutive year, he is being bestowed the special honor of being inducted into the International Santa Claus Hall of Fame located in Santa's Candy Castle in Santa Claus, Ind.
The announcement was made this week, and he will travel to New York next spring for a special awards ceremony.
The International Santa Claus Hall of Fame is an ongoing project that celebrates, studies and preserves the historical documentation of the men and women contributing to the legend of Santa Claus. Like other candidates, Cavender, 56, was judged on the basis of several qualities, including service to community, length of service, uniqueness of career and originality.
Cavender is not a mall Santa. And while he’ll work a few corporate gigs, he primarily focuses on charity work — visiting sick children at area hospitals, and drumming up enthusiasm for Toys for Tots and other efforts to help get gifts to every girl and boy. Also in the 2014 class of honorees is the late Chicago illustrator Haddon Sundblom, who painted the iconic images of Santa Claus for Coca-Cola from the 1930s to the 1960s.
Cavender’s wife, Pam, nominated her husband. She is special, too. After they got married in 1998, Pam became Mrs. Claus.
Cavender's day job is the public information officer for the Cherokee County Fire and Emergency Services. But beginning in early November, Cavender slips into the red suit between 35 and 40 times by Christmas. It takes him about 45 minutes to get ready, with application of the silky smooth — and quite real-looking — white beard requiring the most time.
Many people who have witnessed the magic of Santa Tim over the years were not surprised he is part of a select group of Santas. Cavender is joining the ranks of Edmund Gwenn, who played Santa in the 1947 movie “Miracle on 34th Street”; and Charles W. Howard, who established the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School, which is now the oldest continuously run Santa school in the world. (Howard was also the Santa for the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade from 1948-1965.) Cavender also joins a fellow Georgian, Stone Mountain Santa Ed Butchart.
For the past four years, Cavender has volunteered his time as Santa at a Christmas party organized by the Cherokee Day Training Center, which serves adults with developmental challenges.
“He is one of a kind in my book,” said Lee Ann Shelquist, leisure and recreation coordinator for the Cherokee Day Training Center. “We have guys who take out lists that are two pages long, and he takes the time to listen to them. He has sincerity. And he looks the part — he looks like he’s come straight from the North Pole.”
She said even those adults who said they were too old to talk to Santa could hardly resist once Santa Tim sauntered into the Canton Moose Lodge on a recent evening.
“He has this demeanor and the way he talks to them, they will say, ‘I am going to meet Santa, too,’” Shelquist said. “It’s very touching. It gives you a renewed spirit in Christmas.”
One of Cavender’s most vivid Christmas memories was his first picture with Santa as a young child.
“It was not positive,” he said. “He didn’t look like what I was expecting to see. He was wearing a cheap suit, and a cheap beard with big red circles on his cheeks. I thought Ball Ground deserved a better-looking Santa than that.”
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