Elves Man the Phones in Irvine for Busy Santa

Eight-year-old Jake of Garden Grove wanted the straight scoop from Santa.

“But do they still make fun of him?” the lump-in-the-throat-voice asked about Rudolph, the underdog reindeer.

“No,” Santa soothed. “Nobody makes fun of him anymore. You know the story, one Christmas ni . . . .”

“One foggy Christmas eve,” the boy interrupted. Then, unsolicited, he sang the red-nosed reindeer’s song and added: “You wanna talk to my sister Angie?”

It was just one of those nights for Santa, who, for the second year, could be reached at the Irvine Youth Center by phone, a program sponsored by the City of Irvine.

A group of local high school students and some city youth workers become the voices behind the Irvine’s Dial-A-Santa, taking calls from children--and some giggling adults--during the pre-Christmas evenings.

“We get a hard time from older kids who call trying most of all to discredit Santa,” said Ross Moodie, Irvine’s community service program coordinator. “They say things like ‘You can’t be Santa ‘cause we just saw him at the store.’ ” But for the most part, Moodie said, the phones ring off the hook with young believers asking for Cabbage Patch dolls, bicycles and the like.

“Ho, Ho, Ho, “ bellowed Danny Sullivan, 20, a city youth worker who fielded Santa’s calls on a recent balmy night. “Have you been good?”

“Hmm, hmm,” murmured Steven, who would only identify himself as 5. “I, um, don’t play with children who are mean to me and, and, I don’t trip my brother over.” That out of the way, he blurted out what he was really calling for: a Robotron and “an animal.”

Unlike the quick visits to Santa’s lap, the phone calls sometimes last as long as the caller can make them.

Personal Questions

Kathryn Dungy, 16, a University High School student who took calls for Mrs. Claus, said the conversation usually wanders to the Clauses’ personal life, such as questions about Santa’s age, what he likes for dinner or why Mrs. Claus doesn’t deliver the presents herself.

“How do you know I don’t, I ask them,” Dungy said.

“Why start sexism early?” added Dungy’s classmate, elf Becca Lave, at the next desk. Lave, who didn’t get too many calls that night, munched on pretzels and slumped over her homework until Santa’s secretary could throw a few calls her way.

“North Pole. May I help you?” answered a perfectly polite Cindi Ramirez, who, like an office pro, sugar-coated the news that the boss was avoiding calls. “I’m sorry, Santa is out feeding the reindeer now. Would you like to talk to an elf?

This time the call was from Alyson, 8, of Irvine asking for a fur coat and new car.

In a high-pitched voice, Lave asked, “What are you going to do with a fur coat in Irvine?” And was that, pray tell, her mother, “whispering to you in the background?” Believing in Santa Claus “is uniquely for kids and something that everybody else loves watching them do,” Lave said. “Without that secret somebody, Christmas wouldn’t be the same.”