Santa Walt
While we are still basking in the holiday glow of Christmas Day and before we confront the unknown of the New Year, I thought I would take one last opportunity to visit the connections between Disney and Christmas.
I’ve written about Disney Christmases many times before including last year’s column (“A Disney Family Christmas,” December 20, 2006) and my personal favorite Walt Christmas story that always touches my heart (“Walt’s Christmas Story,” December 21, 2005) so each year it is a little more challenging to find another good, rarely told Christmas story for the readers of MousePlanet.
With his children and grandchildren, Walt strove to maintain the story of Santa Claus for as long as possible. The similarities between Santa Claus and our impressions of Walt Disney are pretty obvious. We think of both of them as ageless and magical, taking great joy in giving to others, friendly and yet mysterious at the same time, and they both have a crew of talented helpers in a secret workshop making it all happen.
What did Walt think of Santa Claus?
Well, he made two Silly Symphonies showcasing the jolly old elf. “Santa’s Workshop” (1932) directed by Wilfred Jackson was the fourth color Silly Symphony and shows Santa and his elves preparing for Christmas Eve. There is even a Mickey Mouse toy on the top of Santa’s bag when he is standing on the sleigh.
“Night Before Christmas” (1933) also directed by Wilfred Jackson is sort of a sequel to the previous year’s short although the improvement in animation is amazing. Sure enough, when Santa arrives at a house and his sack is opened there is a Mickey Mouse toy.
Mickey himself dresses up as Santa in the black and white short “Mickey’s Orphans” (1931). Pluto helps out as a pseudo-reindeer.
In the December 1938 issue of the magazine Woman’s Day is an article by Munro Leaf, the author of “Ferdinand the Bull.” The premise of the article is that some fiction characters like Santa Claus and Mickey Mouse are more real to millions of people than their creators.
“After Walt Disney found out at the age of 6 that there wasn’t any team of reindeer waiting up on the roof while a fat man slid down his chimney, he had fun pretending to his parents that he still believed the whole works,” Leaf wrote.
Leaf asked Walt if he believed in Santa Claus today and Walt responded, “Certainly, yes. When my little daughters confront me with the question, I shall say without a twinge, ‘Of course there is.’ Long Live Santa Claus.”
Diane Disney Miller was interviewed by Pete Martin in the mid-1950s during the preparation of a series of articles for the Saturday Evening Post, which were later expanded into the book The Story of Walt Disney published by Henry Holt and Company. At the time, Diane remembered a special Christmas gift from Santa:
“One Christmas, Santa Claus brought us [Diane and her younger sister Sharon] a playhouse and I just knew that Santa Claus did because it just appeared Christmas morning out in our backyard. It was this darling little playhouse. It was designed at the Studio and the Studio carpenters put it up. It was a little one room, about the size of a good-sized closet. It had little leaded glass windows and one of those little mushroom chimneys on it, though there was no fireplace, and a sink with running water. It had a little tank inside the cooler that you filled then you could turn on the faucet and the water would come out. It had a little cooler all stocked with little tiny canned goods. You know, the small cans that you can buy. It had a telephone in it that would connect with our phone in the kitchen.
“And I talked to Santa Claus on it that morning. We had a big fat butler at the time and it must have been him that I talked to. He asked if the house was all right and I said, ‘Yes, Santa, fine.’ I was afraid to speak. My eyes were probably as big as saucers, because I knew it was Santa and I knew he had brought the house. Some way, he had managed to keep me out of the house all day before Christmas. The Studio carpenters had come up and given their time to put the house up for us. I still have pictures and I have a few things of the little house.
“It was so dear and I knew Santa had brought it. And a little boy next door was sort of cynical about it. I said to him, ‘Well, Morgan, look what Santa brought.’ He said, ‘Santa Claus? You’re crazy. There were men up in your front yard all day yesterday putting the house up.’ I said, ‘Morgan, you’re a liar. I was out in the front yard playing all day long and there were no men.’ I was so positive. I remember it. I just couldn’t have been more positive that Santa had brought that house. It was really a wonderful thing. We have some pictures of it.”
Lillian Disney, in the McCall’s article “I Live With a Genius” (February 1953), also recalled that little dwarf cottage: “I’ll never forget the Christmas Snow White came out. Despite my dire predictions, it was so successful we felt flush about buying presents for the kids. The studio carpenters had spent days building a replica of the dwarfs’ house for them. For about five minutes the girls were thrilled to death with everything. Then they started playing train with the boxes the things had come in.”
In that interview with Martin, Diane remembered several other Christmases with her mom and dad:
“They gave me a huge Christmas with a tree that went to the top of our living room, which is a two-story high living room. They had every kind of toy conceivable. I’ve seen home movies of it. That’s the only way I can remember it, of course. And there I was sitting, surrounded by mechanical toys. Just sitting like this, hitting at them as they performed. That was our first Christmas. They always used to be very insistent upon observing the Santa Claus myth. Mother would fill our stockings in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve. They were hung outside our bedroom doors. I think we probably had them outside the doors because it was easy for mother to get to them. She probably arranged it that way.
“I remember one Christmas that I wanted a watch and a velvet dress and a piano and I got all three. And the watch said, ‘To Diane from Daddy’ and I still have it. I got a velvet dress and I got my piano because I had promised if I got a piano that I would take lessons. A real piano. A little upright. So I took lessons for about five years and hated it. I just hated my lessons. After I stopped taking lessons, I began to love to play the piano. I think Dad’s very disappointed that I never carried it on further. But it’s such a great consolation to me. I’m so glad that I can play as much as I can.”
During the making of Snow White, Walt saw the ink and painter staff working overtime very hard during the holiday season to finish the cels for Snow White and so he jumped into his car and raced over to Hollywood and bought up every lady’s compact he could lay his hands on.
When he returned to the studio, he quickly donned a fake white beard and red cap and burst into the ink and paint corridor as Santa Claus, distributing the gifts to each one of the girls. All of Walt’s money was tied up in the production and he couldn’t afford to give them a cash bonus at the time. For 30 years later they were still talking about the night Walt played Santa Claus for them.
It was a tradition that Walt carried on for many years. Disney Legend Joyce Carlson told me that during her time in the ink and paint department, “At Christmas time, we’d have a little party and he’d bring little compacts, face powder, nylons, cosmetics and he’d go around to all the girls and you could pick what you wanted.”
Author Bob Thomas remembered that Walt enjoyed playing Santa Claus for his friends so much that he maintained a file of hundreds of children of his personal friends, members of the press, studio workers, film executives, etc. To each child went gifts of Disney character merchandise—one important item apiece, plus a few little ones.
Walt’s secretaries were responsible for putting together all these packages for the children, and each present had to be wrapped separately. They were often kept busy right up to a few days before Christmas. A room in the studio warehouse was converted to a virtual Santa’s workshop early in November, and Walt dropped in daily to inspect the packages and make sure that his specifications were being carried out. The gifts continued until the child reached the age of 12, then he or she was dropped from the list and received a Christmas card instead.
Like many other businesses, the Disney Company sends out Christmas cards, but unlike most other companies Disney has a pool of talented artists and instantly recognizable characters. These cards were sent to theater owners and other people in the motion picture industry and are not generally seen by the general public. The earliest cards were based around Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Goofy, Pluto, Clarabelle Cow and Horace Horsecollar. Later, from the time of “Snow White,” the cards were mostly focused on a current animated feature. The cards are a history in miniature of the animation classics of the Disney Company.
One of my favorite moments in the Disney anthology television show is in the episode “Holiday Time at Disneyland” that originally ran December 23, 1962 and was rerun many times over the decades. The show starts with Dickensian Christmas carolers singing in front of the Sleeping Beauty Castle and amazingly, it is snowing in Anaheim. The bell ringer turns around and it is a smiling Walt Disney.
Later, Santa Claus himself shows up and worries that the snow might not be good for the special Disneyland holiday parade. Walt has Tinker Bell turn off the snow. Two kids run up to Santa Claus for an autograph on their Disneyland guidebook.
“Sure, you can have our autographs,” says Walt filled with Christmas spirit. “You go first, Santa.” After Santa signs his autograph, Walt prepares to sign and the kids grab the guidebook and run off saying, “Who’s that other guy?”
Walt is amused and tells Santa, “It is your day, Santa, so make the most of it. I’ve got 365.”
Santa smiles, “I see what you mean, Walt.”
Walt gives Santa his carolling bells as a Christmas gift and Santa rushes off to prepare for the parade.
When I lived in Southern California, I spent many wonderful Christmases with friends and family at Disneyland and always considered those memorable visits were an extra special gift from Walt himself who loved playing Santa. Disneyland was always magical but around the holidays it was even more so.
But even Walt realized that there is only one Santa Claus just as we all realize there was only one Walt Disney.
Every year at this time, I give thanks for both Santa and Walt Disney who remind me about the joy of being a child at heart and how wonderful it is to give to others. That’s one of the reasons I love sharing all these little known Disney stories with all of you and I hope that you share them with others.
Walt said, “Long live Santa Claus!”
I think most of us at this holiday season say, “Long live Walt Disney!”
