RELIGION / JOHN DART : Mr. Claus Says Santa Isn’t Just for Christmas

Santa Claus, the secular icon of Christmas, has got religion. St. Nick is saying, “God bless you” as well as “Ho, ho, ho,” and he’s reminding kids not only to be nice but also to “say your prayers.”

Of course, most of Santa’s costumed helpers don’t do that--the mixture in today’s society might be considered jarring.

But a religious side is more evident now in a fellow who has been playing Santa Claus full time since 1949, has helped six White House occupants greet Christmas and antagonized more than one Los Angeles-area neighborhood with his lights-ablazing, year-round home decorations.

White-whiskered Robert George, 71, early this month was accepted as a member of Van Nuys’ large Church on the Way, a Pentecostal congregation he and Mrs. Claus have attended weekly since they moved to Sun Valley 15 months ago.

“I’m ready to go to the Lord if anything happens to me,” George said this week in his living room, where the television is continually tuned to a religious channel.

George probably couldn’t have picked a church with a pastor friendlier to Santa than the Rev. Jack Hayford.

Last year, in a religious publication, the minister criticized Christian grinches who knock Santa as a character detracting from the religious core of Christmas. Hayford said that Santa is a symbol of the Christmas sentiments of love and giving. Few children confuse the fun-filled Santa story and the Christian story of the birth of Jesus, Hayford wrote.

More recently, Hayford cast Robert George’s often eccentric, sometimes ill-articulated mission into a religious framework during an appearance late last month with a red-suited George on the Trinity Broadcasting Network’s “Praise the Lord” program, hosted by Paul and Jan Crouch.

“He doesn’t think that he’s Santa Claus, but he knows he was called to play that role,” Hayford said. “(He) wants to serve humanity by fulfilling the symbolic expression of the love of God,” said Hayford, a widely admired pastor in U. S. evangelical / Pentecostal circles.

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George has told his story over and over through the years: He had a vision at 2 a.m. one night in 1949 back in Cozad, Neb., that he was to portray Santa Claus. He bought a $7.50 Santa costume and began assuming that identity year-round, giving up his barbershop business. In 1956, then-Sen. Carl Curtis of Nebraska arranged for George to join White House Christmas ceremonies with President Dwight Eisenhower.

The man from the barber pole later was invited to the White House by Presidents Kennedy, Nixon, Ford, Carter and Bush--once during each of their terms. He missed Lyndon Johnson. He turned down an invitation from the Reagan White House, though not for political reasons.

“His staff wanted me to wear a blue suit--a coat and tie!” George said with dismay. “They said it would be commercializing Christmas if I wore my red Santa suit,” he explained.

“If I had been commercializing Christmas all these years, I’d be a millionaire now,” said George, whose twinkling eyes belie a sometimes-precarious livelihood based on donations and earnings from appearances.

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In fact, times are not easy for Santa, who has been slowed by the effects of multiple-bypass heart surgery in 1986 and recurring hospital visits in 1991. Mrs. Claus, Stella, his wife of nearly 20 years, worked as a bank auditor in Glendale a few years ago but now is retired.

Hardly in retirement himself, George delights kids at burn centers, residents of Skid Row missions and others needing cheerful “ho-ho-hos.” He bears donated gifts from various sources, including rag dolls made by inmates at the Sybil Brand Institute.

But life has become quieter for George, who has lived in California since 1960, since he moved to Northridge. His first wife, Fern, died of cancer in 1965.

While residing in Sierra Madre in 1976, George drew neighborhood complaints about his two large, motorized sleighs in the driveway. The city cited him for running a business out of his home without a license.

In 1978, the Georges were living in Anaheim when they opened a Christmas museum featuring the sleighs and many of Santa’s costumes. “We closed it because the rent was too high,” he recalled.

While living in Glendale in 1986, George was cited for building-code violations at his home because of 52,000 lights, 10,000 ornaments, 95 Christmas trees, a snow-making machine and other holiday accouterments that were on display all year long. Neighbors’ protests prompted city action. George sued the city, then settled by agreeing to restrict the display to a few weeks a year.

Today, his 42-foot-long sleighs and wheeled reindeer have been sold.

Only a modicum of Christmas decorations adorn the front of his rented home in Sun Valley, although toys, stuffed animals and memorabilia still fill the two-bedroom house.

George wants it understood that he’s always included expressions of faith in his message, reminding adults and children alike that Christmas celebrates the birth of Jesus. A crucifix on the bedroom door of Mr. and Mrs. Claus bears witness to the couple’s Greek Orthodox Church heritage.

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George said he got serious about religion after surviving heart surgery and a “near-death experience” in which he said he saw Jesus on a heavenly throne. But after joining Church on the Way, he said, “I got more saved.”

The idea of attending the Van Nuys church was first suggested to George by one of its members, entertainer Pat Boone. Boone said he heard on local television about “Santa” hospitalized at St. Joseph’s in Burbank, and asked to visit him.

Boone and his wife, Shirley, anointed George with a vial of oil in a prayerful rite at his bedside.

“He had fallen on hard times, so we did what we could materially,” Boone said this week. “I recommended that he try Church on the Way if he didn’t have a church home.”

Another couple from the congregation kept in contact with the Georges, but it wasn’t until Mr. and Mrs. Claus moved from Glendale to Sun Valley that they started going to Hayford’s church.

“I found Robert George to be a very sensitive and good-hearted man,” said Boone, who also interviewed him on a Trinity Broadcasting program a couple of years ago.

“There are a lot of pseudo-Santas out there, but I was happy to meet someone actually carrying out the tradition of St. Nicholas.”