DESPERATELY SEEKING SANTA : On a Scavenger Hunt for Father Christmas, Our Man Discovers a Ho Ho Host of Jolly Elves

“Happy holidays, my friend.”

The man in the red velvet suit and the white cotton beard smiled as he handed out flyers on a busy sidewalk in downtown Santa Ana.

He was trying to drum up business for a jewelry shop, a tactic that might have inspired the business owners next door. Only they apparently got to the costume shop too late--their man was dressed in a decidedly unseasonal clown suit.

Or maybe they figured one live Santa per street was enough. As it was, another Father Christmas was around the corner, seated in a plaza at Fiesta Marketplace. A line of children waited to get pictures taken with him as he sat before a backdrop of a snowy night scene. The legend printed above: AT&T; le desea felices fiestas .

Translation: Santa was shilling for the phone company.

This blustery but glorious Saturday mid-day in Santa Ana was one stop in my second day of cross-county driving in search of Kris Kringle in all his incarnations, a sort of Santa scavenger hunt. The short-answer result: Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus, but you might not always recognize him. There are some surprises left in the jolly old elf.

There were no real rules for the search, although I avoided big indoor malls. It takes more than a story assignment to get me into a mall in December, and besides, I know what shopping mall Santas look like. (For the record, I did catch a distant glimpse of South Coast Plaza’s Santa not long after he arrived. For a fat guy, he was kind of dwarfed by a forest of giant, inflatable toys, but he did look quite authentic.)

This, then, was a more impressionistic search, which means I basically had a license to make it up as I went along.

FRIDAY, about 6:30 p.m.: I start at the Lake Forest home of a friend, mostly because I want to borrow his Polaroid camera, having vague ideas of documenting the search. He decides to join me for awhile, and we head off into the night.

Of course, that’s about when it starts raining. Hard.

Our walking tour of the neighborhood turns into a driving tour. It’s a tidy middle-class tract (north of Trabuco Road, between Bake Parkway and Lake Forest Drive), and as we roll slowly through the Caminos, Paseos and Calles, I am pleasantly surprised by the level of decorating enthusiasm. Several houses sport lawnsful of plywood character cutouts, hand-cut and hand-painted: Santas galore, plus snowmen and elves and reindeer and one re-creation of a scene from that TV evergreen, “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”

The rain-slicked streets make a nice mirror for the lighting displays. Whereas lights in my ‘60s childhood were big, bright and garish, these days lights are tiny and usually white, and some houses are covered in glittering sheets of them. Prettier, perhaps, but the old lights had a certain clunky charm.

One kitschy carry-over from the days of old are those big Christmas characters of molded plastic, lit from within with a single light bulb. One house has a full plastic manger scene on the driveway, complete with glowing Wise Men and Baby Jesus.

Glowing Santas (one pass too many over Chernobyl, perhaps?) are far more prevalent, though. Some popular models: standing Santa with fake chimney, usually mounted on the roof; regular standing Santa, often paired with standing snowman; plastic Santa in sleigh with reindeer, mounted on roof or suspended above lawn. My personal favorite is the glowing, disembodied Santa head, about two feet high and hung in windows or on a wall--perfect for that surreal touch.

Some streets are relatively dark and quiet, while others are veritable Vegas strips of pulsing lights, which tells me that a certain amount of decorating peer pressure goes on. Perhaps, though, there is another force at work. This neighborhood has a homeowners association, with its attendant rules and regulations. Most of the time, even a basketball hoop above the garage door can get you in trouble, but Christmas is the one time of year when you can do just about anything to your house and get away with it.

After about half an hour, I drop my friend back at his house and head west. Passing the Marine Corps Air Station, I take a right on Desert Storm (that’s a street) and take a slow cruise through the station’s family housing. Some of the moms and dads must be off feeding the starving in Somalia, but the urge to decorate goes on, perhaps even stronger.

The owners of one house have strung a few hundred lights between some trees, creating a nice starry sky for a miniature Santa, sleigh and reindeer suspended in the middle. Very cool (this is at the corner of Wake Avenue and Midway Place).

There’s something a bit pathetic, I begin to realize, about driving around alone and looking at Christmas lights. I start to imagine the families behind the doors, warm and dry, maybe decorating the tree or making out wish lists, maybe talking to friends on the phone (“Hello Marge? Have you noticed that pick-up that keeps driving real slow through the neighborhood? Well, the guy just got out and took a picture of your house. Yeah, kinda creepy. Should we call the cops?”).

The slight melancholy is cut through with twinges of nostalgia. I had planned to make my way to a particular house in Buena Park, at 8039 Clover Way, where we sent a photographer to illustrate this story. Don’t the pictures look great? Well, I never made it there--instead I found myself heading to my old neighborhood in Tustin.

My childhood home, the one where I first got to hound my dad into putting up our family lights, is lit up, but that’s the only consolation here. The street is otherwise dark and somewhat depressing, no Santas in evidence.

From here, though, things start looking up. The old neighborhoods near downtown Santa Ana (Santa’s namesake city, I guess) are looking downright festive. Santas are relatively few and far between, but there are lots of lights on the wooden houses--colored lights too, not the twinkly white kind.

I find myself meandering to what used to be called Honer Plaza, now apparently renamed Bristol Marketplace (at Bristol and 17th streets, across the street from what used to be called Santa Ana College, since renamed Rancho Santiago College. What’s going on here?).

My own history with Santa Claus started here--rather contentiously, as it turns out. As a toddler, according to family lore, I pulled the beard off a Santa at Montgomery Ward. This is also the site of another incident a few years later that usually rates a mention around family holidays. That was the time I got my head stuck between the wrought iron bars of a railing inside the store, rating an emotionally scarring rescue by mall security.

Like most aging Southern California shopping centers, the facade here has probably been remodeled at least a dozen times, but the innards are basically unchanged. J.J. Newberry, the discount store that time forgot, is still here, a fact that manages to surprise me every time I pass by. Price check at Newberry: a stand-up plastic Santa, about 2 1/2 feet high, runs $16.99, light bulb extra.

Most bizarre new Christmas gadget: a Santa head with a built-in light sensor and sound unit. You hang it in your house, and when someone walks by it gives the customary “Ho, ho, ho!” or a Christmas carol.

It’s getting close to 9 p.m., and I begin a meandering path home, passing through Westminster. No Santa surprises.

SATURDAY, 11 a.m.: Friday’s rains have been blown away, and the morning is bright and clear with one of those trademark views of the snow-capped San Gabriel Mountains. I’m on Harbor Boulevard in Fullerton, where a line of cars filters into the parking lot at Toys R Us. The shoppers are out.

On the side streets nearby, I see people putting up lights and decorations. On the lawn of one house on Commonwealth Avenue (just east of State College Boulevard), a full-size Santa mannequin sits in a wooden sleigh filled with stuffed animals. On the other side of the yard, the owner is hammering together a life-size manger.

Driving along the 57 Freeway, I pass the new Anaheim Arena, symbol of the season’s biggest gift: Disney is buying a $100 million hockey team, putting the city’s fears of an empty arena on ice. Merry Christmas!

In downtown Santa Ana (in the blocks around Third Street and Broadway), I meet my first two live Santas, the jewelry guy and the AT&T; guy. I also find a Santa pinata hanging from the ceiling of one market, and I attract stares from clerks when I snap its picture. Nearby, painted on a restaurant window, is the most inscrutable S. Claus so far: He’s holding a moneybag in one hand and a wad of bills in the other; a thought cloud with a single question mark rises above his head.

I’ve heard about a dandy Santa Claus at a department store in South Coast Plaza, and I head down Bristol Street with all intentions of stopping in. But traffic backs up, beads of sweat appear on my forehead, I get anxious. I turn right on Sunflower but get spooked by the lines of cars in the parking lot and keep going. My God, even the parking lot at Crystal Court (where a three-story Santa commands the inside lobby--see Page 13) looks full. I head home.

SUNDAY, 11 a.m.: Last stop, Asian Garden Mall, Bolsa Avenue east of Magnolia Street in Little Saigon. The statue of the jolly fat man outside depicts Buddah, not Santa.

There is a Santa inside, though. When I arrive, he appears lonely and forsaken despite the crowds of shoppers in the mall. He lifts his beard to sip soda from a can, looks around the mall and folds his hands in his lap. He’s on a big stage in the center of the mall, a fake fireplace on one side, a Christmas tree on the other. A banner advertising live lobster hangs above his head.

I walk off to check out the shops, and return a half hour later, just as a young girl climbs into his lap. Things are looking up as several youngsters and their parents wait to have their pictures taken.

Across the street, at the Asian Village shopping center, I find just one Santa image. It’s painted on a restaurant window, depicting the familiar figure standing in a snowy field, holding a tray with a full roast pig above his head.

Back home, visions of ham hocks dancing in my head, I read in the paper about a shopping mall Santa in Granada Hills who claims to have rescued a woman from a robber while wearing his full Kris Kringle regalia. Only, it turns out, the woman is an acquaintance, and police believe the rescue may have been staged.

According to the story, he held a press conference to defend himself on Saturday, dressed in red velvet and flanked by children carrying signs that said, “We Believe in Santa Claus.” “They’re attacking the very magic and joy of Christmas,” he said, “and we’re trying to preserve it.”

You tell them, Santa.