‘SANTA IS WATCHING YOU,’ mysterious signs say. Suspect has a white beard.
About 10 feet high on a wooden utility pole, held fast with two Phillips screws, a red sign with black letters has a four-word warning for people going north on Moreland Avenue. “SANTA IS WATCHING YOU,” the sign says. Govern yourselves accordingly.
Similar signs are scattered from Kirkwood to Chosewood Park, with sightings reported as far east as Avondale Estates and as far west as the west side of Atlanta. In what was already the most-surveilled city in America, it seems the watching has intensified. He even sees you when you’re sleeping. And it’s only March.
“I mean, we’re all being watched, man,” Ross Wade said Monday around dusk as he smoked a Marlboro 27 outside Buddy’s convenience store on North Avenue. But he placed the blame elsewhere:
“You know who’s doing the watching? The capitalist corporate oligarchy.”
Buddy’s is near an epicenter of the Santa surveillance state, with three red signs close together along the south side of the avenue. It was getting dark as a couple walked by, pushing a baby in a stroller.
“It feels very Atlanta,” Amanda Bryan said of the Santa signs.
This place does have a lot of weird public art. People like putting stickers on things. One of the Santa signs had been enhanced by a sticker that depicted a cat wearing red eye shadow.
Would the baby be taught to believe in Santa?
“Yeah, probably for a little while,” Matthew Shelton said. “Until his substitute teacher tells him otherwise.”
Shelton said this very thing had happened to him in second grade. A substitute teacher just blurted it out in front of the children. Santa isn’t real, she announced, apparently veering away from the lesson plan.
Like tiny doors and geocaches, the Santa signs have an air of mystery and wonder. How long have they been up? At least one Christmas, and possibly more. How many are there? You could guess a dozen, but this might be nowhere near the total.
A good reporter would pose these and other questions to whoever posted the signs. But their creator’s identity is not publicly known. Which makes sense, because placing a sign on a utility pole is technically illegal — as is climbing down someone else’s chimney.
The Atlanta Department of Public Works has removed more than 400 unauthorized signs in the past year, communications director Kim Rankins said in an email. The department looked into a report last April about a Santa sign at Moreland and North, “but no illegal signs were found, and the case was closed.”
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution sent some hard-hitting questions to the office of Mayor Andre Dickens. Deputy communications chief Michael Smith played along:
“While Mr. Claus’ operations fall outside municipal oversight, based on available evidence, he seems to run a very effective seasonal accountability system and maintains monitoring practices that have been in place for centuries.”
Smith added that if people believe Santa is watching “and that helps Atlanta residents stay on their best behavior, we are not here to spoil the magic.”
But if Mr. Claus is watching Atlanta, the city is watching back. A few months ago on Moreland Avenue, an eyewitness apparently caught the sign poster in the act.
Anthony Jackson is a 65-year-old electrician who does not currently have a job or a home. Sometimes he sits on a narrow concrete ledge between All Size Tires and the Whistle Express Car Wash just south of Hosea L. Williams Drive. From this vantage point, he saw it all unfold.
It happened in broad daylight, he said. An old pickup truck pulled up outside the tire shop. A two-tone truck, blue and white, with two men in it. They brought a ladder and a cordless drill. They took their time putting up the sign. The older man had a full white beard.
“He said, ‘I’m Santa. And I’m watching you.’”
Jackson said he laughed, and replied:
“If you’re Santa Claus, can I get a beer?”
Santa did not give Jackson a beer. But he did hand over a dollar bill.
Jackson remembered being a child and believing in Santa Claus until he was about 13. One night around Christmastime, he got up for a glass of water and saw his father putting out the presents. He slipped away unseen, deciding it was best if he pretended to believe.
Jackson has known sorrow and regret. He had a drug addiction with terrible consequences, he said, and a daughter who died too young in Tennessee. But in his life, he has felt the sense of a powerful and benevolent presence watching over him. One month he needed $375 to pay the rent. He hadn’t told anyone about the shortfall. No one but God, he said. One day, he said, a stranger called Jackson over to his car and gave him a white envelope that contained $375 in cash.
It was a breezy afternoon as Jackson told this story. The morning fog had given way to sunshine, but a deep puddle stood nearby from the heavy rain. Traffic hummed along the avenue, and machinery whirred at the tire shop. Above Jackson on the utility pole, the Santa sign remained.
Would the sign-posting Santa’s identity be revealed? Hard to say. A reporter asked Jackson if he had a message to pass along to the man with the cordless drill and the white beard.
Yes, Jackson did have a message:
“Tell him I need a home.”
About the Author
Thomas Lake is a senior reporter for The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. His work has been published in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated and The Guardian. He's a co-founder of The Lake Family Band. Please email thomas.lake@ajc.com if you'd like to share a story idea.
