DALLAS — We tell stories and sing songs about a man in a big red suit who gives gifts, spreads cheer and makes everyone’s Christmas merry.
But history shows he’s got plenty of assistants through the years and we are not talking about his elves.
WFAA stories archived at SMU’s Jones Film Library captured the Christmas of 1976 and the many unique ways people celebrated the holiday spirit.
One of them was a 23-year-old ministerial student named Jack Kerr who spent his Christmas vacation as a Salvation Army bellringer, a job many others have worked for decades hoping to inspire passersby to drop whatever they could into a red kettle.
“I consider it more than a job,” said Kerr. “It is a ministry and a chance to help people and share with people.”
And no need to bother with a sleigh when you can make a school bus jingle all the way.
Bus driver Helen Elliott allowed school kids at Sudie Williams Elementary to put their art skills to good use in the month of December. The outside of her bus might have looked like any other Dallas ISD but the inside had enough handmade Christmas décor to match Santa’s workshop.
But in Carrollton, Larry Bowman had the same job as Santa Claus.
To deliver.
That is why on the closest working day to Christmas, he made his usual postal route dressed as the big man himself, red suit and all.
“I got so many nice people on my route, I felt like I could do something for the kids,” said Bowman.
Since his St. Nick routine was so popular the year before, he took it up another notch in 1976 by bringing along Frosty the Snowman, also known as his brother, Rick, who also found Christmas joy in the reactions his costume received.
“The expression on the kids’ faces is something to see,” Rick said. “It brightens my whole day.”
Who needs the North Pole when Santa already lives all round us.