Pssst. Want to know a secret? Santa Claus doesn”™t really live at the North Pole. He lives in Darien, Conn. And he and Mrs. Claus don”™t really operate a toy shop overrun by a bunch of industrious little elves with squeaky voices. They own a Wild Birds Unlimited birding store in Bedford Hills. And he doesn”™t ride to work in a red sleigh driven by eight tiny reindeer, either. He drives a red Chevy Equinox.
But yes, those white whiskers are real. And during the rest of the year, Santa pretends he”™s Joe Warren, a store owner, a volunteer fireman in Darien for the past 44 years, a Pitney-Bowes retiree and an all-around nice guy, husband and dad. And each Christmas he digs out his Santa suit ”“ he”™s on his fifth, each one a bit larger because “I grew into this role with gusto” ”“ and visits a local sporting goods store and various neighborhood block parties to make a list and check it twice.
While Warren makes his Santa appearances ”“ “hundreds and hundreds of them” since he first donned the red, fur-fringed suit in 1975, he thinks ”“ free of charge, that doesn”™t prevent grateful parents and happy children from giving him appreciative gifts. “They can”™t resist it,” he said. “Over the years I”™ve accumulated numerous Santa Claus ornaments, bottles of wine, an occasional bottle of scotch because I”™m sure people realize how fond Santa is of scotch, and untold, untold numbers of cookies, because I”™m sure everyone knows how fond Santa Claus is of cookies.”
Those cookies are part of the reason Warren”™s Santa suits keep coming in larger sizes. He came by his first suit, which he still has tucked away in a closet and which, “No,” doesn”™t fit him, while he was working at Pitney Bowes and his wife, Pat, was working at Cannondale Bicycle Corp.
Cannondale, he said, “was so small, I knew everybody in the company,” including the founder, Joe Montgomery. Back in 1975 or ”˜76, Warren said, Montgomery “called me at Pitney-Bowes and said, ”˜Are you coming to the Christmas party on Friday?”™ I said, ”˜Yes,”™ and he said, ”˜Go to the men”™s room on the first floor. There”™s a box. You”™ll know what to do.”™”
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Second generation
The box, of course, contained the Santa Claus suit. After Warren played Santa at the Cannondale party, Montgomery told him to keep the suit, “so I brought it home with me.” He wore it only once that year, but “it”™s amazing how quickly word gets around that you own your own Santa Claus suit, because for year two I did it for the Noroton Fire Department”™s Christmas party and the Immanuel Episcopal Church holiday fair.” And the Cannondale party.
The third year Pat had changed jobs and was working at a marketing research company in Darien, the Gene Reilly Group, so Warren played Santa for that firm”™s Christmas party, the fire department, the Episcopal church and his mother”™s church. Then Steve Zangrillo, owner of the Darien Sports Shop, phoned Warren. The guy Zangrillo had hired to play Santa Claus backed out at the last minute and Gene Reilly, who had wanted to bring his grandchildren to visit Santa, told Zangrillo he knew someone who owned a suit, that maybe he could help out.
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“So I played Santa Claus for the Darien Sports Shop, and I guess I did a pretty good job because here we are 29 years later and they still ask me back every year.” That first year Warren was Santa for six hours spread over three days “and we took maybe 30 Polaroid pictures.” Last year he spent 40 hours spread out over a dozen days “and we took more than 1,000 pictures.” This year he will spend 56 hours at the sports shop as Santa.
And Warren is now into the second generation of visits to Santa. “Seven years ago it happened the first time when a young woman came in with a little baby, about 4 months old. She handed me the baby and took a picture and said, ”˜Now I can take this picture home and put it in the scrapbook next to the one of me sitting on your lap.”™”
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Once is enough
Warren grew up in Darien, graduated from Darien High School in 1964, then “messed around for a while, went to Sacred Heart for a year, to the University of Bridgeport for a year, then the Navy for two years.” He and Pat, who had lockers next to each other at Darien High School for a few years, married in 1969 ”“ they have two grown children ”“ and Warren joined Pitney-Bowes in Stamford later that year. “I was like a kid in a candy store,” he said of his position in the corporate research department calibrating and repairing test equipment. Six months later he became a technician in the company”™s development area, where he worked with two others to develop the world”™s first electronic postage meter. “My name appears on about seven U.S. patents and a dozen or more international patents for that work,” he said.
Over the next three decades Warren progressed through a series of positions, retiring in 2003 after 34 years with the company as a senior engineer. At about the same time, Pat had taken a severance package from Golf Digest in Trumbull after pursuing her own career after being a stay-at-home mom. Part of that package, Warren said, was a series of meetings with an outplacement company, including a seminar on franchising. “So we began to look at franchise opportunities, and we found Wild Birds Unlimited.”
The couple found an operating store in Bedford Hills, about a 35-minute drive in that red Chevy Equinox from their Darien home, and took ownership on Nov. 1, 2001. “Think about this,” he said. “We were negotiating over the summer to buy the store and along comes Sept. 11. Everybody in both our families told us we were crazy to start a business venture given the uncertainties” about what might follow the 9/11 attacks.
“But we thought that given Sept. 11, people would be spending a lot more time at home, and our business is about the home,” he said. “We thought it would be a very viable business, and here we are six years later, doing better than double the business we were doing when we bought the store. Nobody”™s going to get rich in this business, but the bills are getting paid and we”™re having a lot of fun with it.”
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As for Santa, Warren begins in early November. “This is all word of mouth,” he said of his growing itinerary.
After each Christmas, Warren cuts his whiskers down to about a quarter inch, “then just let them grow for the whole year,” he said. “By the end of the year, it”™s a serious beard,” which he has had for the past 11 years. “It was finally white enough that I could use my own. Before that, like everyone else, I spent a lot of money on a good Santa Claus beard and wig.”
Warren, 61, doesn”™t see himself hanging up his Santa suit any time soon. “I”™m a firm believer that you only get to go around once, but that if you do it right, once should be enough.”
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