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LLI GOLINE/NORMAN WELLS
There is at least one town in the North, that ol' Saint Nick never misses.

Beloved Santa Claus Stewart Beckingham delivers a gift to Norman Wells resident Benjamin Small, on Christmas eve 2010. - photo courtesy Bonnie-lou Small

In Norman Wells, Santa makes his home deliveries each Christmas Eve like clockwork, personally bringing presents from parents and guardians to the delight -- and sometimes horror -- of the town's small children.

"They look forward to it every Christmas Eve," said Bonnie-lou Small, who has enlisted the town's Santa to deliver gifts for her children for the past 12 years. "My kids always enjoyed Santa. They thought it was wonderful."

The Town has arranged for Santa to go out the afternoon of Christmas Eve annually, delivering presents wrapped and dropped off by families and friends to about 30 residences in and around town, for at least the past 20 years, according to longtime town employee Cheryl Veitch.

"When Santa Claus goes out on Christmas Eve, I'll have it on paper for him according to the avenues here. It's all well-marked for Santa so there's no problem," said Veitch, one of Santa's "elves," along with town programmer Lindsey Blake, and sometimes high school volunteers. "We get the presents organized so when Santa comes dressed up, everything's organized for him.

"It's tradition because people here love it. The parents and the guardians, they love it."

There have been a number of Santas over the years, and some play the part better than others, Small said, with the town's current Santa of five years, Stewart Beckingham, among the best.

For Beckingham, the best Christmas gift has come each year in being the town's Santa, he said, recalling a special encounter in his first year in Norman Wells, with a two-year-old girl waking up from a nap in her grandmother's arms.

"When she got about three or four feet away from me, she jumped out of her grandmother's arms and into mine. And that made Christmas for me that year," Beckingham said. "That little girl stole my heart. She still loves Santa Claus."

Playing Santa since he was 18, Beckingham, 62, has especially cherished the role in Norman Wells, since moving from his hometown of Dalhousie, NB, in 2007.

"When I came up here the first year I knew I wasn't going to be able to go home for Christmas. I didn't have any family or anything so I said 'OK, I'll be Santa Claus. He's got a great big family,'" Beckingham said.

"The agony and irony of playing Santa Claus is that some kids love you and some kids are terrified of you. And that's normal because what's the first thing you teach your children? Don't talk to strangers. And lemme tell ya, who's any stranger than Santa Claus to a young child?"

Santa has delivered gifts large and small, with the most unusual gift he says he has delivered being a small child's grandparents.

"That was the gift. They showed up and the kids didn't know their grandparents were coming for Christmas," he said.

In the early days of the tradition, Santa went out on a sled, but that became too inconvenient, Veitch said, so now Kris Kringle is taken out by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

"Friends at home think it's pretty cool that Santa Clause drives around in an RCMP truck," Beckingham said, adding he won't be retiring his red suit any time soon. "As long as they want me and as long as I'm here, I'm quite willing to keep it up," he said.

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