Santa Claus Is Alive and Well in Crestline, Calif.

The flatlands of Southern California, among slender palms and frantic freeways, were unfitting for a fat old man, so six years ago he moved to the mountains, which held magic, and set up a workshop to build wooden toys and chairs.

He gave them to his grandchildren, then to other boys and girls. Inspired by new surroundings, by the smell of sawdust, the silence of snow, he became the person he always wanted to be, the person he always knew he was.

You might recognize him by his white hair and beard, his jolly demeanor. People around the town of Crestline in the San Bernardino Mountains say that as Christmas nears, there also appears the unmistakable twinkle in his eyes.

And if you ask him his name, as many people do, he will confirm what you suspected all along. “I’m Santa Claus,” he will say.

He lives a humble, modest life in a tiny one-room cabin, dozing off each night in a reclining chair, covered by a blue blanket. “When this chair wears out,” he says, “I’ll get another one just like it.”

His modest lifestyle suits him. What would one think of Santa, he asks, if he lived a lavish life in Orange County? He shakes his head. No, that wouldn’t be right.

On top of a small television is a miniature, plastic Christmas tree. His house is cluttered with books and odds and ends. There is a dusty computer his son gave him, an old microwave oven and refrigerator with milk for his oatmeal, dressing for his salad and diet soda.

He’s watching his weight and has shed 47 pounds in the last three months, improving his aerodynamics through winter sky and narrow chimney. There will be plenty of notches available on his black leather belt to allow for milk and cookies this Christmas Eve.

Hanging from the armoire is one of three Santa suits he keeps. He wears them only when he’s working, he says, but he doesn’t stop being Santa when he takes them off.

“It’s year-round. It has nothing to do with what I’m wearing. I’ll wear my regular clothes, and people will still wave at me, either that or flip me off. Some people seem to get a kick out of that.”

There is a nativity scene set up next to his guest chair, a plastic Santa on top of the refrigerator, a fishing pole leaning against a wall. Hanging above the pole on the wall are words of faith carved on wood or woven into cloth. “Be in heaven half an hour before the devil knows you’re dead,” says one.

An ordained minister, he has a bachelor of theology degree from San Bernardino Bible College. One must have faith, he says, to be Santa.

Because of world events since Sept. 11, he has been more in demand this year. His phone started ringing in October.

“I think it’s because people need something to laugh about,” he says. “Lord knows there’s been enough sadness.”

He charges $100 an hour for private parties but donates a great deal of his time to hospitals, nursing homes and nonprofit agencies. He gives away most of his toys. Wouldn’t be right for Santa to peddle them, he says. Some people hire him to build things, and he takes on odd jobs at times. He’s your man if you need a parking lot resealed and striped.

He has worked Christmas parties for everyone from CEOs to doctors and lawyers. He once ended up at a party for members of a street gang, some of whom he had to ask to remove their weapons so he wouldn’t be jabbed in the ribs when they sat on his lap.

He didn’t know what he was getting into, and he didn’t stick around long at that one, but he says that perhaps they, more than the others, needed Santa. There are, however, places he won’t go. He has limits. He draws a line in the sand.

“I don’t do malls,” he says. “It seems people at malls drag their kids to have their pictures taken with Santa because they feel a sense of duty. They got to buy this and that, and they’re in a hurry, and then they got to get the kids’ pictures taken. They don’t do it because they want to, so what’s the point?”

Plus, he was once threatened at a mall when a man, upset that Santa had closed down shop for the evening, shouted obscenities at him and was waiting for him in the parking lot. Good thing, he says, that two of his elves were off-duty cops.

People around town know him as ageless Santa, more so than 61-year-old Terry Dunlap, his real name. They know him as a man of goodwill. He can be counted on for helping friends or strangers with anything from hanging drywall to fixing people’s cars, to lending out his 1972 one-ton Chevy truck, which he hasn’t seen in a couple of weeks now. He put on a Thanksgiving dinner and invited the community this year, not that he could afford it. Many people donated time, money and turkeys, but he still had to reach deep into shallow pockets. Dinner was served to 241 people.

One day he showed up at Steve’s Army Surplus with a wooden bench he made. In return, the owners give him a good deal on long underwear, red ones with the flap in back, or buckles or bells or whatever Santa needs. That’s one thing about giving, he says--it always comes back, maybe in friendship, maybe in long underwear.

Being Santa isn’t something he became, he says. It’s who he has always been. Even as a child, he would dress in anything red and “Ho-ho-ho” to the delight of others.

For 33 years, he worked as a heavy equipment operator. He started taking on outside Santa work in 1966, a couple years after he was married. His beloved Nancy, Mrs. Claus, was fatally struck by a car while crossing the street in 1970.

The most difficult request ever asked of him by a child? He wavers, then looks away. Tears come, and he wipes his nose with the back of his hand. “Give me a minute,” he says. He looks out the window and says softly to himself the same words children must say when their hearts cry out. “Come on, Santa. Come on, Santa.”

Then he describes his first Christmas without Nancy, who left four small children. He describes how they sat on his lap that year and asked Santa for their mother to come home from heaven. “I couldn’t bring her back for them,” he says. “Sometimes you have to tell them, that’s not me. That’s God. Sometimes they understand, and sometimes they don’t.”

He raised his children, now grown, with help from his family. He never remarried. His daughters live in Michigan and Ohio now.

His son, Jon Dunlap, is a contractor in Orange County, where outside his home he has assembled a scene of candy canes and lights and signs pointing the way to the North Pole.

“He’s always been Santa,” Jon says of his father. “He thinks he is Santa. He believes that for the people he’s around. Being Santa for him isn’t about wearing a red outfit, and it’s not for fun. It’s a way to reach people and make them feel happy and alive.”

He has made, perhaps, 50 appearances this year, and there is still a long night ahead before he can drop his bag and ease himself into his chair and sit quietly, alone, until sleep comes.