Countdown to Christmas: 39 Days What Color is Santa Claus? Or Jesus, for that matter?

This is STRICTLY for entertainment purposes and not open for debate!

But I have found some rather fascinating opinions and comedic revelry on the subject, two of which I thought I'd share.

It all started when Aisha Harris wrote in her article Santa Claus Should Not Be a White Man Anymore on www.slate.com about her experience growing up conflicted because Superman, (Oh, excuse me, Freudian slip) SANTA CLAUS was white in some place and black at her house.

Megyn Kelly from Fox News stepped right up...and then stuck that same foot in her mouth by saying not only was Santa Claus white, so was Jesus.

So, getting back to Aisha Harris's article (assuming you followed the link), she thinks Santa Claus should from now on be a penguin. Because penguins are so cute and sweet and everybody likes them.

Apparently, she's never heard of THE PENGUIN from the Batman comics that has been in existence since December 1941 (Ha! December! How ironic is that?), and is probably just as popular as Santa Claus.

OH, Puh-leeeeez! Batman, Superman, Santa Claus, Michael Jordan...no, wait he's NOT WHITE!

Okay, so let's compare Michael Jordan to Santa Claus, because, obviously, Michael Jordan is a fictional character (he, and Denzel Washington) because there is no way a man who is ALL THAT and has fans of all races and nationalities can be black.  Because if he was black, then white people wouldn't like him. They would not have attended his basketball games, cheered for him in the Olympics, bought his shoes or his underwear, or whatever he was promoting, right? Because white people can ONLY admire and relate to white role models or, in the case of Michael Jordan and Santa Claus, LEGENDS!

SO, if Santa Claus can be depicted as black, or (Oh, please no...a penguin) then by all means, Michael Jordan must, from now on be depicted as a white guy or a very tall rabbit. If you don't get that reference...look it up.

Now do you see how really ridiculous this all sounds?

Santa Claus is a fictional character based on St. Nicholas, who was actually from The Mediterranean, so he was probably sporting a rather decent tan.

However, for many generations, we in America have celebrated/acknowledged a Santa Claus who is loosely based on Washington Irving's (white guy) version of Sinter Klaas, Thomas Nast's (another white guy) illustrations in Harper's, and the jolly on elf in the poem by Clement Clarke Moore (you guessed it...white guy) as our jovial gift giver.

Santa Claus is legendarily portrayed as a portly aging white guy, with or without glasses, red suit, black belt, white or green gloves or mittens, black or white boots and the all too familiar (regardless if he's riding a Harley Davidson or a sleigh, whether he's fly fishing, drinking a Coke, sunning at the beach with Jimmy Buffet, being taken over by a Pumpkin King with a great singing voice, or sitting at the mall) white beard. He lives at the North Pole with a bunch of elves with curly toed shoes and pointy ears, his wife, Mrs. Claus who is just a regular, overweight, sweet lady...who is also white.

BTW it is NOT Mr. and Mrs. Santa Claus! It is Santa and Mrs. Claus.

After spending most of the year making toys in the North Pole, he rides his sleigh all across the world and drops down the chimney (if you have a chimney, if not, does he just slip through a window or come through the front door?), he eats the cookies and milk you set out for him, he leaves presents under the tree and/or in stockings, and sneaks back out.

Then your parents get up really early and play with your toys before you get to!

So, I don't see the problem here.

Other countries have their own version of this generous guy, why can't we? And why does it have to be a racist thing for him to be white?

If you want a Kwanzaa Claus, then by all means, get one! I'll tuck a figure of him right in there with the rest of my Santa Claus, Pierre Noel, Sinter Klaas, and Ded Moroz collection..but please, just let Santa Claus be an overweight white guy.

And Jesus can be Middle-Eastern.

More great articles to read:

Jesus Wasn't White but Santa Definitely Is

Megyn Kelly Addresses White Santa Comments

Love ya, Megan and Aisha for keeping it fun!

31 DAYS of SANTA CLAUS Day 24 Dee Gann Santas...How can I resist?

Do you recall in my recent post Buying Collectible Santas Through Online Auctions PART DEUX Another Bad Experience, I told about a seller, unhappy that his auction sold for their low starting bid, cancelled out our transactions and resist the items that I had won fair and square.

I also mentioned in that blog how fortunate I was in retrospect to have found such a beautiful Santa for less than what I would have paid for just the padded shipping of those auctions.

Then, I was searching eBay for Santa's in auctions that were ending soon, and with less than three minutes left, I came across this handsome fellow. 

The starting bid was very reasonable, and I was so tempted to bid on him but I really don't collect Santas doing things other than delivering toys, etc. So, I decided to let him go to someone who would love to have him i their kitchen. Come to think about it, maybe I WOULD love to have him in my kitchen! Hmmmm

Anyway...

With him comes this card that says he was designed by Dee Gann.

I was not familiar with the artist, so I did a little Google search and was I delighted when images of gorgeous Santas filled my screen. Dee Gann is truly and artist extraordinaire whose work is highly collectible and her designs are sought after by companies like House of Hatten and Raz.

I know what your thinking...Dee Gann was a designer for House of Hatten and Geri did not know about her? 

Well, I usually collect the Denise Calla and other ornaments. Early this year, I acquired my first H of H Santa figure and recently I purchased another through eBay.

If you love beautiful Santas with incredible attention to detail, I suggest you visit Dee Cann's website and LIKE her Facebook page at Dee Gann Santas. Her one of kind Santas are fashionable dressed and loaded with antique or custom made toys.

Finally, I'd like to add this. I was curious about the Santa I'd purchased (the one pictured at the beginning of the blog) and I saw where Dee has a Guest Book on her website and I sent her a message asking if my Santa was one of her designs and about another one I had purchased. 

She replied on the same day and said that my Santa was one that she had designed but the other Santa I asked about was not.  

I can really appreciate the effort and passion she puts into her work and I am so pleased that she found the time to respond when I know how busy she is this close to Christmas. 

She also sent this photo for me to post on my blog.

If you are looking for a spectacular gift or family heirloom, I suggest you visit Dee Gann's website and consider one of her Santas. I read a comment from a very pleased customer who was complementing Dee for the Santas she had dressed in her daughter's coat. Talk about heirlooms!

If there was ever a Santa artist I'd wish to aspire to, it would be Dee. I have been collecting toys and vintage fabrics for years. With my recent purchase of fresh Cernit and cold porcelain to work with...and don't forget the eyes...I'm looking forward to some serious Santa crafting!

The only problem, I don't know how I could part with them.

If you want to read another blogs about Dee Gann's Santas, check out Saturday Arts Save: Dee Gann Santas and 5th and state: Dee Gann's Santa's

31 DAYS of SANTA CLAUS Day 14 What to Do With Broken Santas

Today I received another broken Santa from an eBay purchase.

This is my THIRD purchase to arrive damaged during shipping.  The woman who packaged him did not bother to wrap him or the other Santas he came with, but I am grateful it was only this one.





















If you've read my previous blogs, you'll recall that my first to arrive in pieces was the Costanza Santa that I was so looking forward to adding to my collection.











He arrived with his feet and base broken off.

Then I received another shipment of Santas that were not wrapped at all. I could not believe it when I picked up the box and heard the ornaments rolling around.

I bid on this lot because of the three House of Hatten (2 Santas/1 elf in a stocking) that apparently now one else saw because I got the entire lot for the opening bid of $6.00. But when I opened the box, Ebenezer Scrooge's (top left) hand was broken and one of the jingle bells on the metal Santa (bottom center) was broken off as well. I am just glad that the H of H ornaments made it unscathed. That was a miracle!

So, what does one do with a broken ornament? 

Resin is a very popular way to make copies from an original piece. I have pieces that are cast in a heavy resin (usually brown) poured into silicone molds. This made for heavy figures. You can usually tell if a hand carved figure is wood or resin by the weight in that if it is solid resin, it is heavier than most woods; if it seems light in weight, it is probably a hollow resin copy. I can tell by tapping it against my bottom teeth whether it is wood or resin.

The hollow resin technique is used in mass produced ornaments and decorations that need to be lighter weight, and are made by pouring the resin in a mold and giving it a swirl. Resin in this form is not the ideal material to work with.  It can be as thick as half and inch in some areas paper thin in others, therefore it can break easily. 

I have found that when it breaks, unlike bisque, ceramic, or porcelain, it tends to flex. This can make it difficult to alight the pieces. When repairing resin, I usually use super glue or a modeling glue that performs the same as super glue. 

Usually, there will be some touching up to do and I've found acrylic paints can touch up the cracks and last a long time with minimal handling. I usually put a dab of sealer over it that is either flat, gloss, or a mixture of the two to match the piece I am repairing.

I recently repaired a few House of Hatten pieces. They really do break easily, usually because of a paper thin area of resin. I used super glue and a tiny amount a non firing clay that dries to a hard finish to fill in the chipped areas, repainted and dabbed on some matching sealer. 

I found this huge piece by Denise Calla (H of H artist) with both of the front runners broken clean off. It only cost me $5 at Goodwill, but after I repaired the damage, it could easily pass as mint and go for over $100 on eBay. 

Of course, zoomed in you can see the where it was repaired.

I need to find some of this fine glitter to cover up the repaired area.

I tried scraping off some of the loose glitter but it wasn't enough to really patch the repaired area, but if you look at the whole piece, there are several other bare areas.

The clay works well for me but in the case of missing pieces or pieces that are just to thin to glue, I found this great little tip on Yahoo Answers. 

"Dave" offered this suggestion and I may have to use this technique one day.

"I would look into an automotive body filler such as Bondo or an epoxy putty such as Tech Steel. You should be able to find both, or similar, in an automotive store. They both are shapeable, harden quickly by a reactive process, can be easily filed and sanded when dry, paint well and have similar properties to the resin that the ornament is made out of. I would tend to suggest the putty first because it is firmer and more mouldable but be aware that it hardens in a few minutes. You will need to form a rough shape and then fine tune when fully hardened."

I first started repairing ceramic, bisque and porcelain figures in the early nineties. Because as an artist, I work with so many different mediums, I tend to have a lot of materials on hand to experiment with. I would find things at flea markets and yard sales that had minimal damage and repair them. The damage areas were undetectable. 

My greatest challenge was a Lladro figurine that a friend brought me that was broken in half along with several small pieces. Glueing it together was one thing. Gluing heavy pieces together can be challenging enough, but adding the small puzzle like pieces with some inside beveled edges was a whole other thing. I figured out how to assemble the pieces, but I still had to fill the missing chips and repaint and find a glaze that would work.  

So, after I matched the Lladro signature blue with watered down acrylic paint, I touched up the filled in chips and added Diamond Glaze. This is the product I used on my Santa Claus eyes because it gave them a more realistic look. When I bought it, it was in a jar. Now that I have finally recalled the name, I found that it now comes in a bottle. Great stuff! And it adheres to glass. So, the Lladro was saved. I can't say it was my best work considering all the damage. But I can say that it looks better on a shelf than in a trash can!

Don't give up on your broken ornaments. There are plenty of products out there you can use to repair the ones that are the most sentimental or are a part of your favorite collection. Practice on some that you are not as sentimental about and you'll be surprised with what you can do.

I don't care much for the Gorilla brand of Super Glue. It is a paint work with on any surface and I had to glue this one twice which meant a layer of glue which caused the crack to be more pronounced.
Also, super glue can cause a bit of reaction to the paint (like turpentine or paint thinner) and you can see where it smeared on the white and how the crack is visible.

Since this is not a collectible ornament, I took some liberties with my painting technique and added some ermine. I was painting rather quickly, and I wish now that I had taken my time and done it neatly. DANG IT! But the added detail camouflaged the repair. You can still see a tiny crack but I'll touch that up later. I couldn't see it until it was blown up on the image.

I also painted a date on him, just for fun.

So here he is, back in one piece and not so worse for wear. His hanger was missing so I added a screw eye. I did not have any gold so I painted it red.

Finally, I replaced the wire belt around his waist, touched up a few too many dark spots on his beard, and this Christmas he'll join the rest of my 300 Santas on the tree.

31 DAYS of SANTA CLAUS Day 8 Sad Day for One Anthony Costanza Santa

I did an update on my post (Day 3) when an Anthony Costanza Santa that I won on eBay arrived in the mail broken.

I was so excited about receiving this Santa. He was about two inches taller than the tallest on I have already. Most of my Costanzas are about ten inches or less. 

But today, I had to take him to the post office to file a claim. They had to keep him and told me he would be tossed in the trash once the claim and been accepted. This made me terribly sad. I doubt I will ever find this exact one from the same "generation" as the other pieces in my collection that is actually signed by the artist, nor will I be able to find one at that price.

Perhaps the Lord did no mean for me to have him.

Yet still, I have been searching eBay for Costanzas that I can afford and I found this one. 

He was manufactured by Enesco, but I think he will go well with my other Costanza Ded Moroz by Enesco.

The Costanzas I purchased in the 90's (Silvestri) have a different face and artistic style. This one is very similar, but if you compare the other faces, I think you'll notice the difference.

I almost always paint my Santas with blue eyes. Most of the Costanza Santas I have collected have brown eyes, with the exception of Ded Moroz.

This next Costanza Santa in the chimney is from around the same time frame as my original collection and was a product of Silvestri as well.

As you can see, he is also signed by the artist and he will look great with my other traditional Santa by Costanza.

I am still waiting for these to arrive in the mail. Lets hope they make it intact.

I just love the way Anthony Costanza carves his Santa's faces!

And then there is this guy. He's only about 6.5" tall. At first the seller was asking a lot for the opening bid. The seller claimed it was wood, but I sent them a message to explain that since it is marked Silvestri on the bottom, and numbered, then this piece is actually made of resin. 

I also asked them (since the auction ended without a bid) if they would please re-list this Santa with an option to make an offer. They did, and when I made a very reasonable offer, they accepted. So, as of now, I am still expecting him to come in the mail.

All photos from this blog were pulled from their original eBay posts. Once I get all my Santas in, I will add them to my collection for a wonderful group photo to share with you.

I did not get to craft any of my own Santas today because I was substitute teaching art for grades Kindergarten through fifth. Teachers who work multiple grades every day must feel as though they have a split personality due to the way they must adjust their teaching and classroom management skills to every level.

But I just loved meeting all the new Kindergarten students and seeing how much my other students have grown and changed over the summer. The best part of being a substitute is that I get to "spoil" the students, like a grandmother, then give them back.

31 DAYS of SANTA CLAUS Day 7 Finding a Santa Claus in Anything

Creating a Santa from anything and everything is the trend. I know, because I've found Santa in a number of unusual things including two Kalhua bottles.

I recently purchased these three Santas from an estate sale because I will buy just about handcrafted Santa I find. I have to applaud this artist for "finding" the Santas in these two pieces of dried cypress (I think) and a seashell. I've seen a lot of oyster shell and starfish Santas (I've even painted some myself) and sand dollar, and driftwood...etc., but I really like this artist's take on the spindle shell.

I just love the way this artist found the cape in this piece of weathered wood and the way Santa is pointing at something. The star of Bethlehem perhaps?

During my years of Santa crafting and attending shows, I have heard many, many times that is was all about the face, especially the eyes, that appeal to collectors.

This artist did not put a lot of effort into the face, but the shell and smaller piece of cypress do have quite a comical expression. Unfortunately, the larger on looks a bit deranged.

Even though I am VERY tempted to touch it up...I will respect the artist's vision.

Speaking of artist...for heaven's sake...SIGN AND DATE YOUR WORK!

All I have for this artist is his/her initials on the bottom of the largest one.

So, if anyone knows a Santa Claus crafter back in 1996 whose initials are B.G., please let me know.

Here are some Santa ornaments I crafted from slices of a cypress knee. I found these in a one gallon bag at a garage sale and probably only paid a dollar or two.

I've been painting this style of ornament since 1993.

Most of these cypress slice Santas were sold at the 2013 Holiday Arts Tour in Ruston, LA. And yes, they are signed and dated.

Now, I must get dressed and ready for my day. There is nothing like working in your pajamas but it is time to put on carpentry wardrobe because I am still working on my lake house while my husband is off.

We have owned this lake front property in a nice neighborhood on Lake Bistineau, LA for two years and we are still working on it. It's a long story and involves a criminal case...but what renovation doesn't? Believe me, this adventure deserves a blog of its own!

So, I have attached a photo of the house at some point in the remodeling process. This was out Christmas photo two years ago. That is how long this process it taking.

However, we do have one of the bedrooms completed and the bathroom. What else could we possibly need?

I'm looking forward to my husband returning to his real job so that I can get back to work on my Santas!

Sorry, Honey.

A Very Special Santa Claus Cypress Knee

Over the past few years I have painted cypress knees given to me by a friend, and in exchange, I create customized Santas, Angels, even a Raggedy Ann and Andy for him to give his sweet wife and daughters-in-law for Christmas.

This year I happened to meet two of his daughters-in-law while set up at a Farmers and Artist Market.  When they realized I was the artist who had created their Santas, they asked me if I could paint them a very special Santa for their father-in-law who, unbeknowst to me, had lost his wife to cancer only a couple of months ago.

The young ladies came over and picked out an especially nice cypress knee that their father-in-law and given me and sent me emails of photos of the special things they wanted to add to his Santa Claus.

They asked that special items be added to the Santa including 8 grandchildren.

On one side, I painted three helping with decorating and setting out toys.

On the back, two step grandsons are sitting on Santa's bag. The oldest is holding one of his step cousins. I thought is was extra special that they included these two boys on the Santa.

Part of the cypress knee's design made for a great garland,

Raggedy Ann and Andy were a favorite of his wife's, so they were added to the toy bag.

At first I thought about adding my friend's face on the Santa, then I decided that since this was more about his wife, the Santa needed to be unique.

HIs wife cross-stitched every one in the family a stocking, so they asked that I add hers to the cypress knee Santa along with a very special hummingbird feeder that she loved.

And of course, the angel, painted to look like Deb, in one of her favorite gowns.

I called my friend a couple of days after Christmas and left him a message. He came by see me today and we talked about his loss and all the love he had for his wife. The Santa Claus cypress knee I painted touched him immensely and I told him that I had happy and loving thoughts all the time I was working on it.

He was blessed to have had such a loving, thoughtful, and sweet wife. My thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.

Cypress Knee Santas, Popeyes and other ways to Celebrate Christmas!

I have just spent about 40 hours painting 8 cypress knees most of which are going to the daughters-in-laws of a very sweet man who harvests the cypress knees from his property, boils them til the bark is soft enough to pull off, and dries them in his oven.
There is nothing quite like the smell of cypress knees drying in the oven.
Why I forgot to photograph the naked cypress knees before I painted them, I have no idea, but there is something curious about the twists and knobs on the knees that just speak to me.  Just check out this LINK to get an idea of what they look like naked.  Not all cypress knees can be a Santa Claus, although I've seen other artists just slap a face and beard on any old thing (actually, I've done that as well) so I like to "find" the Santa in cypress knee.
My friend, who began bringing me his cypress knees to paint about 10 years ago, made some special requests for this year's lot that reflected the individuals who would be receiving them as Christmas gifts.

My friend's family has grown in the past couple of years with the addition of two grandson's, a 21 month old and one just born on Monday the 20th, and two more special grandsons by marriage all who call him "Popeye".
So I want to share these with you all.  The tallest of the lot is only 9 inches tall and the smallest (not pictured with this group and was to be a gift for a friend at work) was only 2 inches.
Here are some other photos of the individual cypress knees.