By Elaine Van Develde

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

This year, Santa’s coming to the firehouse between 1 and 3 p.m. on Sunday.

It’s another Fair Haven tradition you can always count on. So, the Retro Pic of the Day takes us back to Santa at the firehouse when it all started.

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 the early 1960s (OUCH) through the early 1970s.

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.

There were the scents … Peppermint and gas. Yes. I remember the peppermint scent from a room full of sticky-fingered kids with candy canes upstairs in the firehouse, and the, yes, comforting waft of gas from the fire trucks that protected us. Then there was the excitement then 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.

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.”

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 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 a long-lasting one.

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.