Mostly I hate it when you click on an article online, only to find out that you've been click baited into looking at something that is months, if not years old. Newspapers are notorious for this practice, and it's generally annoying AF. Who wants yesterday's news? Except when yesterday's news is not really news, but a story that's still pretty interesting a year later.
Thus, the article I somehow found my way to on, the gravedigging Santa of Nome, Alaska.
Now Nome, Alaska (pop. under 4,000) doesn't have a ton going for it. It's fairly remote and there's no way to get to it by road, so it's only natural that it's major claim to fame is that it's where the Iditarod sled dog race finishes up.
It's also home to Paul Kudla, the town gravedigger, cemetery maintainer, and city truck driver, who is also a Santa for hire. And a pretty well-established and in-demand one, too.
If you sideline as a professional Santa, gravedigging for the departed of Nome is not a bad gig, as it's too frozen up there to do winter burials. So winter's pretty much downtime.
Kudla gets around.
Despite being so far from his pearly bearded peers, Kudla is fairly well-known. In 2015 he won the title of America’s Best Santa on the TV competition show Santas in the Barn, where he competed against nine other diverse Santas in contests ranging from speed present wrapping, building gingerbread houses on ice, and Christmas song knowledge (his weakest category—he doesn’t care for holiday music). He ended up beating out the Surfing San Diego Santa on the final episode, broadcast on Christmas Eve. The title netted him $100,000 in prize money and $10,000 for Make-A-Wish, his charity of choice.
Last year - remember way back then? in the before time? - was a good one for him:
Right before the 2019 Santa season kicked off, Kudla and nine other Santas from around the world toured around Japan, doing photo ops everywhere from hospitals and schools to the subway and a Toys ‘R’ Us. He’d been invited by a fellow Santa he met while competing at the Santa Winter Games in Norway and again at a convention in Kyrgyzstan.
Santa Winter Games in Norway I can see, but, seriously, I get that conventioneers get sick and tired of convening in Chicago or Boston or Las Vegas, but who holds their conventions in Kyrgyzstan? (I did hear it's lovely this time of year...)
Anyway, that's Kudla above, straphanging on the subway in Tokyo, and I have to say I admire his getup and think that he makes a kick-ass Santa.
While gravedigging and cemetery caretaking bring you mostly in contact with grownups, and Santa-ing mostly with kids, the skills overlap is significant. In both situations, he's dealing with heightened emotion and plenty of tears. Sometimes he's providing comfort; sometimes he's providing joy; and sometimes he's bringing a measure of both.
Like all good Santas, Kudla has a workshop:
...where he repairs sewing machines that are over 100 years old and crafts his extensive collection of Santa regalia. “I Santa-ize all my clothes,” Kudla says. “I’m finishing a jacket I made out of muskox. I look huge in that thing. I have a golden moose hide and a pure white buffalo hide that I’m saving—those need to be for something special. I have a vision of a duster coat with fur trim and a half cape in red leather. I just made a Russian Army officers hat Santa-fied.”
Not surprisingly, Kudla welcomes Santa jobs in the climes that are sunnier than Nome's, where daylight lasts only 4 hours during December. (The less time to actually see the cold and snow, I guess.) Last year, though, his Santa work was in Anchorage, Alaska's big city, where the weather isn't a whole lot better than it is in Nome.
He's back in Anchorage again this year, and he's lucky to have work, what with fewer mall, store, and party Santas in demand, thanks to COVID. He'll be playing Santa at Cabela's, the hunting-fishing-shooting store. So kiddos hoping for snowshoes, ammo, or duck calls will be able to ask Santa in person.
Sadly, Santa needed to don PPE as part of his apparel this year.
Unfortunately for Kudla, the physical barrier greatly hinders interactions with children. “You can barely talk to them, ” he said. “Santa smiles from be hind a shield and glass.” “It’s heartbreaking, ” Kudla said of the situation, and of the children who don’t understand why they can’t approach Santa. According to Kudla, Santas across the country and world are similarly unhappy, and he knows some who decided to sit this season out. Kudla said that he considered not working as a Santa this year, and he recently came close to quitting. “I almost walked away last week, ” he said. “I felt as if I was losing my Santa magic.” (Source: Nome Nugget)
But fortunately, once Kudla started getting into the swing of things, he found himself getting his Santa mojo back. So for now, the tidings are glad. And if any Nomeite Grandma should happen to get runover by a reindeer on Christmas Eve, Santa Paul Kudla will be back to make sure she gets a proper burial next spring when the frozen tundra thaws.
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