It’s 10 a.m. on Dec. 18 and a sense of festive immediacy fills the McCready Centre.
Wrapping paper crinkles and the murmur of conversation fills the hall as about half a dozen volunteers stand at a long table wrapping Christmas presents.
Large boxes are lined up along the floor, each overflowing with brightly wrapped presents.
In the next room, volunteers from the Fairmont Jasper Park Lodge fill large plastic totes with food. The totes, which contain everything for Christmas breakfast and dinner, will accompany boxes of presents and be given to families throughout Jasper.
It’s the biggest day of the year for Santas Anonymous. Fifty-seven food hampers and Christmas gift boxes need to be filled and delivered by the end of the day—a surprisingly complex and time-consuming process that will cap off months of hard work from the organization’s volunteers.
For the woman running the show, Ann Thomas, the day is both incredibly stressful and rewarding.
She sits at a makeshift desk at the side of the hall that’s weighed down by stacks of lists, notes, forms and envelopes.
Sipping decaffeinated coffee, she runs methodically through a list of families receiving support from the organization this year, slipping gift cards into envelopes that will accompany each package.
Everyone from single adults to families of six or more will receive support from Santas Anonymous this year. They sign up through Community Outreach Services, telling outreach workers what gifts they would like, and Thomas works all year to secure enough donations to get them what they want and need.
Going through the list, Thomas scans the information for family No. 43.
“These people, I’m going to give them some Coco’s gift cards. You know what? That will be a nice little Christmas lunch or treat for them,” she says.
All the families remain anonymous, and aside from a few small details from outreach workers, Thomas only knows the number of people in the family, their ages and sex. She also knows what they have requested for presents.
“By [the end of the year] I know these families forwards and backwards. I know that it’s No. 3 and 31 that need cat food, things like that. It’s amazing what your brain can do,” she says.
“It’s all in the details. The big stuff I don’t worry about. The toys will come, I’ll buy the extra gifts, the sponsors will do their job, the food is easy, the marketing campaign is easy for me. The events go really well, and the volunteers—but it’s the details that wake me up at 4 o’clock in the morning.”
Santas Anonymous began decades ago, when Kathleen Waxer of COS realized there was a need for the service in Jasper. Thomas took over running the show four years ago, when she was hired on as a contractor through the Jasper Community Team.
“A few years ago I thought, ‘oh, that might be interesting.’ Well, be careful what you wish for,” she once joked of her motivation for taking the job.
Thomas gets a small honourarium for her work, and estimates that she works about 500 hours each year on the project.
She says she’s always thinking about Santas Anonymous, and even starts pre-buying some of the gifts in January and February. By the time October rolls around, she is in full swing, organizing events and fundraisers to try to raise enough money to buy all the gifts she will need for each family.
In December she essentially works full-time, buying last-minute gifts, securing donations and making sure she has enough volunteers lined up to wrap, pack and ship everything away.
“Basically I’m on the job for three months,” she says.
“I’m always thinking about Santas Anonymous. God almighty, I’ve probably put in 50, 60 hours the last two or three weeks, easy,” she says.
At around 10:45 a.m. Thomas gets up from her table to put another album into a small CD player, and a volunteer comments on the music change.
“I’ve got to. I’ve got to keep people sharp!” Thomas exclaims in a raised voice, snapping her fingers with a crisp, theatrical flourish.
As she walks from the counter, volunteer Jeff Wilson chases her down, speaking to her back as she briskly crosses the hall. There is an issue with the food hampers, and he needs advice on what to do.
Volunteers had only been putting one yam in each, and there is a surplus of the Christmas dinner essential.
Stopping near the door where the excess yams have been plopped, Thomas bends down and paws though them.
“Really, they are big yams,” she says, turning one over in her hand. A brief discussion of how many yams a family needs ends with her directing Wilson to go back and add extras to the bins.
“Give people two yams, for God’s sake,” she says, as her eyes glint with humour.
As she walks back to her table, she explains that extra food isn’t a big deal for Santas Anonymous, because it’s all donated to the Jasper Food Bank.
Thomas explains that this year the charity managed to get about 80 per cent of the gifts that people asked for—including some major, big-ticket items. For the requests that can’t be fulfilled she gives Wal-Mart gift cards.
She’s careful to point out, however, that only 20 per cent of the Santas budget is spent outside of town.
“That was my pledge when I first started—to try and get more of the local. Because its the locals that keep the community going,” she says.
Around 11:30 a.m., as she’s wrapping up a phone call securing some last-minute donations from Coco’s Café, Wilson approaches her again, apologizing for interrupting.
“No, it’s alright. It happens all the time. I’m actually very good at multi-tasking, or otherwise I wouldn’t last long,” she says with mock exasperation. She digs some AA batteries out of a plastic bag on the table, and points out which toys will need them.
Another volunteer has to leave, and she stops by to let Thomas know. Thomas gets up and thanks her graciously, insisting that she take a gift bag with her for her troubles. The woman seems reluctant, but Thomas persists, eventually convincing her to take one as she leaves. Thomas explains that she always tries to send volunteers home with something for their trouble.
“You know what? I’ve always done that in all my volunteer history. I like to reward people.”
By 1 p.m. most of the boxes and hampers are packed, and Deb Bottomley, who has been out running errands for Thomas all morning, returns with take out for lunch.
Thomas gets up and asks someone to put the kettle on, before crisscrossing the room to round up enough chairs for everyone to sit at the makeshift dinner table.
“Come on, let’s have a nice sit-down,” she says.
Most of the volunteers have left, but she asks for help from whoever can to stay, until everything is delivered. Some agree—especially devoted volunteer and “chief elf” Margaret Maltby—and they spend the afternoon putting finishing touches on the packages and packing up the extra toys and gifts to go to storage, so they can be used next year.
It’s down to the wire, but by the time the Jasper Volunteer Fire Brigade arrives to help with the deliveries at 4 p.m., everything is packed and ready to go.
Thomas directs as they load up specific packages into specific trucks, and by about 6 p.m. they’re finished.
Thomas thanks everyone, and takes about an hour to pack up and organize her desk, before heading home, where her husband has dinner waiting for her.
After cleaning up her office at home, she has a glass of sherry, and nods off to sleep. She will do a few more things when she wakes up, but it’s been another successful year for Santas Anonymous, and time for a brief break.
That is, until late January, when she’ll begin be picking up gifts for next year.
Trevor Nichols
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