Santa to the stars: Today is the...

Santa to the stars: Today is the busiest day of the year for Brady White, a professional Santa who says his beard is insured with Lloyd’s of London.

“For six figures,” he said. “You know, kids are pulling at it all the time. Then there are all those tight slides down the chimney. . . . “

“I’m really one of the top Santa Clauses in the country,” asserted White, who said his career took off when he was discovered while working in a local mall. “I’m in major commercials. I fly around the country making visits. I’ve been to the White House. And I have numerous celebrity clients.”

White said that today he plans to pay visits to the homes of such celebs as Zsa Zsa Gabor, David Nelson, Parker Stevenson and Kirstie Alley, and Chuck Woolery of TV’s “The Love Connection.”

“I tell Chuck I’m his Santa connection,” White said. “Ho, ho, ho.”

And what’s his schedule for Christmas Day?

“Christmas Day?” he repeated. “I don’t work Christmas Day.” Santa sort of sounded as though we were being bad just suggesting such a thing.

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Santa to the street people: The Eldorado Elf, successor to the late Cadillac Santa, showed up at the Midnight Mission on Thursday to continue a decade-long tradition of handing out $10 bills to the homeless.

For years, the bills were handed out by an anonymous man who drove a Cadillac. When he died last year, mission officials learned he was a Torrance Car dealer named Ronald Moran.

Director Clancy Imislund feared that the custom might end with the death of Cadillac Santa, but an associate of Moran’s showed up last year and again this year, giving out about $15,000 each time. He, too, refused to give his name. So the residents named him after his car, an Eldorado.

“Cadillac Santa always said the most enjoyable stage of wealth is when you’re able to give it away,” the Eldorado Elf said. “That’s what we want to continue to do in his memory.”

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Santa to the hoods: Marty Dolginoff tipped us off about a shop window in Manhattan Beach that is drawing a lot of cries of “Humbug!” We can’t figure out why unless it’s the painting of Santa tied to a chair while a man in a black suit and dark glasses holds a gun to his head.

“A lot of people aren’t taking it very well,” said store employee Robert Silvey.

There have been a couple of recent holdups in the area, he explained. And in another incident, a woman being chased by a would-be robber ran into the store seeking sanctuary.

“We’re trying to make a point about (the dangers) of handguns,” Silvey said.

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It’s a wonderful life: Our favorite panhandler sighting of the holiday season was made in Santa (not Claus) Monica, where a street person was munching on a croissant and reading Howard Stern’s “Private Parts” (in hard copy) outside the upscale supermarket Pavilions. While begging for money, of course.

miscelLAny:

You say Christmas is upon us entirely too quickly? Theresa Dimond of L.A. found some evidence to the contrary in a church bulletin (see excerpt). Merry January!