For a number of years, Santa Claus, also known as Ron McCool, has brightened the holiday season for all ages during their visits to his lavishly decorated property and Christmas house at 184 Rutherford Run in Bradford Township.
McCool, who is currently lighting 200 decorations on his property from 5 to 9 p.m. daily this holiday season, with appearances by Santa 6 to 8 p.m. Saturdays beginning Dec. 1 and leading up to Christmas, will mark this as his last season.
“The (decorations) are all for sale the day after Christmas,” McCool noted. “It’s just getting too hard — I started (decorating) the first of October and I’m still struggling to get it done.”
He said he would rather sell the whole group of decorations and ornaments to one individual, but will ‘piece it out” if need be.
McCool is a full-time employee at Zippo Manufacturing Co.; therefore, his time is limited for the holiday project he enjoys providing to the community.
He began setting up the lighted decorations on his hillside property 18 years ago when he first moved to the township.
“It just kept growing and growing and growing,” he explained.
When McCool began his Santa appearances about five years ago, he quickly found out they were popular with young and old alike.
“I’m not getting rid of my Santa suit because I still want to do parties and stuff — I can’t give it all up,” he added.
McCool is proud of the fact that in his years of portraying Saint Nick, only 10 young children have been fearful of him. He also estimates that he has had as many as 800 visitors in a season.
“I know there are some nights I go through 12 boxes of candy canes,” he recalled. “I buy a few (boxes of candy canes) every payday now.”
As a matter of fact, some evenings have been so busy for Santa that he has had to ask co-workers and his significant other, Marsha Brisson, to bring candy canes to his rescue.
McCool also has a Santa mailbox for children and has tried to respond to his young writers in the past.
While he enjoys visits from children and their parents, he treasures the elderly who “get so excited” by the display. Buses carrying seniors have traveled up the road in the past to get a glimpse of Santa and his house.
“The oldest one to visit that I know of was 94 — and she didn’t want to leave,” he continued with a laugh. “I had one older lady who came on the bus and could tell me what was new in the yard every year. That’s how much she paid attention and enjoyed it.”
He said other visitors who impressed him last year were two foreign exchange students from China.
“They were 18 or 19 years old and they were going crazy because they don’t have Christmas in China,” he said. “They were taking pictures for an hour, it was cool to see them get excited at that age.”
While he lamented that it would be hard to give up the decorations, McCool also admitted, “it takes a lot of money to buy all this stuff and do it.”
Those who are interested in acquiring the decorations are asked to stop by Santa’s house during the holiday season, as he would want to speak with the individuals directly.
“They can just stop by the house, they ain’t going to miss it,” he remarked.
