Retro Santa Firehouse Visit Times — Rumson-Fair Haven Retrospect

It’s the year without close Santa encounters. Santa came to town, but not to the Fair Haven firehouse, as with every year since the dawn of most area kids’ time. We’re told there have been some other masked, distanced Santa visits in 2020 pandemic holiday times, but the laptop visit is out, so is the firehouse extravaganza. So, in honor of the traditional visit, whispers, close-up scary gander at that beard, promises of being good and gifts, our annual reprise takes everyone back to that firehouse visit … or wherever … with Ol’ Saint Nick …

It’s that time of the year when a longstanding Fair Haven tradition has taken hold — photos at the firehouse with Santa.

It’s another Fair Haven tradition you can always count on.

I remember …

I don’t recall whether or not the Santa visit always took place on a Sunday. I do know that I was always there as a kid, from 1964 (OUCH) through the early 1970s. I was even taken there a few years before the move to a Fair Haven that would be home to three generations for more than half a century (note the photo).

Though the memories of the specifics are somewhat fuzzy, the sentimentality and emotional ties are still as vivid as the red on Jolly Ol’ Saint Nick’s suit.

I remember the peppermint scent from a room full of kids with candy canes upstairs in the firehouse, sticky fingers, the, yes, comforting waft of gas from the fire trucks that protected us. Then there was the excitement mixed with doubt of whether or not I was still a believer. Oh, and the nagging obsession over whether or not that beard was real.

If I told my parents I didn’t believe it was real, as if unmasking some major fraud, then they’d say it was one of Santa’s “helpers” trying to share the wealth of his pre-Christmas visits. I think one year, or a few, fireman Bill Overman was a “helper.” To this day, every time I see the guy, I have a Santa’s helper flashback. That and his mind-altering clown role on the firetruck ride at the fair. Lollipops and candy canes. Candy canes and lollipops. Sadly, Bill, a 52-year FHFD member, passed away not too long ago. Those clown and Santa images are forever kid crayoned in my mind, though. RIP, Bill.

Specifics aside, there was that undeniable growing attachment to the tradition and the town that was emblazoned in my sometimes weary holiday heart — clown and Santa’s helper PTSD moments and all.

I can still see a montage of that scene that evoked that happy little Fair Haven kid memory cache. There I was, sister and parents beside me, standing there in my green coat and goofy looking knit stocking hat with that big tassel of yarn dangling at the end.

I remember rehearsing what I’d ask for, my poor cash-strapped parents trying to urge me to keep the want modest, because “other kids needed Santa’s help more.” We were told we had all we needed in 1964 — the year we moved to Fair Haven. My parents were right. No other kids were quite so lucky.

Then there was the pose clutching the half-eaten candy cane and all the stress of checking out that stinking beard while making sure I got my word in on the most wanted present. All I really wanted was “a doll with a wind,” as I called it.

I got it, after Santa’s elves finally “made enough of them,” and I loved it. The thing didn’t do too much, but I was pretty obsessed with the power of Claus through which it arrived under my tree.

Then there was the part at the firehouse event where we got to go downstairs into the emptied fire truck bays and pick out a pre-Christmas present. I still remember standing there staring at the tables full of wrapped presents, carefully sizing up my prize.

I remember getting one of those potholder making kits. Rest assured, every family member got a really ugly pot holder for that and a few years after.

I think that, the not-so-thrilling, but beloved, doll, the eventual Easy Bake Oven and that cardboard kitchen were my favorites.

Tradition. It really didn’t take much to make much.

Now, off I go to whip up a batch of Christmas cookies in that Easy Bake Oven. Hmmm … Where to put the oven? The kitchen fell apart in 1970.

Got pot holders?

** Originally published in December of 2014 on the first year R-FH Retro launched. **