You hear Santa before you see him. “Ho, ho, ho!” he bellows as he descends the escalator. “Merry Christmas!”
On this Saturday morning at the Tysons Corner Center mall in Virginia, children and adults smile at the sight of the bushy-bearded man in the red suit.
Accompanied by a security guard, Santa — real name Michael Graham — makes his way to Santa’s Chalet, which is tucked at the end of a hallway near an eyebrow salon. Dozens of children are lined up, waiting to take a photo with Graham and tell him what they want for Christmas.
If Santa were real, he would look like Graham. His white beard and mustache are woolly, his cheeks are rosy, and his glasses sit perched at the tip of his nose. He wears a fat suit to enhance his girth, but even when he’s not in costume, kids still come up to him.
The 68-year-old doesn’t mind. This is his 40th year as Santa and his 37th at the Tysons Corner Center mall. The job isn’t easy — Graham starts in November and works eight- to 10-hour shifts every day until Christmas Eve. Still, he loves it.
“It’s important that the character that they’re wanting is there,” he says. “You have to have a mentality of joy, and you want to spread that joy to them.”
Some children can’t contain their excitement. “Santa’s watching,” one mom wearing candy cane earrings tells her sons as they run around. Another jingles a tambourine to calm her toddler, who is sobbing in Graham’s lap.
This year, Graham says popular requests include Labubus and Legos. But Linden Bartlett, a 4-year-old decked out in a candy cane shirt, pink pants and pink glasses, asks for a pink water bottle. Five-year-old Theodore Nguyen asks for drums.
Graham became Santa by accident. Forty years ago, he was constructing floats for his Tennessee hometown’s Christmas parade when the man who was going to be Santa canceled at the last minute. Graham stepped in, and he’s been Santa ever since. He still lives in Tennessee, where he runs a construction company, but he comes to Virginia for two months every year to be Santa.
Years ago, mall management tried to put another Santa in Graham’s place. But thousands of fans phoned, emailed, petitioned and threatened a boycott, and the mall reversed its plan.
Graham estimates he sees between 600 and 900 children on some shifts. Once, a kid asked for a mimosa tree. Another asked for a waterfall. (“Will mom and dad let you have a waterfall?” Graham replied.) The asks can be heartbreaking: One girl told Graham that the only thing she wanted was for her deceased mom to come home.
“She was stuck in my head for years,” Graham says.
It’s not just children who visit Santa. “A tremendous amount of adults come. You’d be surprised,” Graham says. A 103-year-old woman once asked for more time to spend with family.
“As you get older, you realize stuff is just stuff,” Graham says. “The most precious thing is time.”
Some families travel from as far as California to keep up their tradition of seeing Graham at Christmas. People who saw him decades ago are now parents with children of their own.
Caitlin Vierra, 36, started seeing Graham when she was 2. Now she brings her two young kids to see him. “It makes me want to cry. It’s just really special,” Vierra says. “Being able to do this with my own kids is so heartwarming. It’s nostalgic in every possible way.”
“I’m in a lot of people’s families,” Graham says. That’s why he keeps coming back. “What’s the one thing that you want as a human? To be loved,” he says. “That’s what I get out of it.”
About 1 p.m., Graham leaves his chalet for a one-hour break. He spends it in his suite, which was once the women’s powder room in the mall’s now-closed Lord & Taylor.
He takes off his Santa hat. It’s hot under the costume and fat suit, so his hair is matted and sweaty. A few spare Santa costumes hang on a clothing rack. On the coffee table sits black shoe polish, a pair of red suspenders and a bag of peppermints.
He says he hopes to continue the job for at least another 20 years.
“I’m not interested in retiring because it’s not something that drags me down,” he says. “Until the Lord says it’s time to stop.”
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