The only constant in NoVA is the Tysons Santa
Mike Graham has watched the mall and the world change from his Christmas set. The Machine visited to ask him 10-ish Questions.
10-ish Questions is a recurring feature of The Fairfax Machine. Have an idea for who we should interview next? Tell us in the comments.
Mike Graham has been Santa for 40 years now, long enough to long outlast the shops around him at Tysons Corner Center. Long enough for the kids who once perched on his lap to grow up and bring kids of their own, to build the kind of loyalty that leads families to jet in each year just to see him from Michigan, Texas, California.
If you’ve visited Tysons at Christmastime since the mid-1980s, you’ve seen Graham, too. The white beard. The red cap. The blue eyes twinkling behind the round, low-sat glasses.
You know. Santa.
“I don't even think about it anymore. It’s just automatic. I don’t care where I am, where I go, it’s ‘Santa!’ And you just look,” Graham, still just 67, told The Machine from his first-level Tysons set this month. “Most [people] will come up to me and want a hug or something like that, because that’s what we do up here.”
Tysons Corner Center calls Graham the longest-tenured Santa in the DMV, and by now he has to be. But he’s not a local. He grew up in San Diego, where it snowed once in the 18 years before he enlisted in the Army, and has lived since in Tennessee, where he owns not a workshop but a construction company. Tysons brings him in and puts him up each winter to be its Santa anyway, because kids and families adore Graham, have from the start.
“People say, ‘How hard is that? You’re just sitting there.’ Well, I say that’s perfect, because that’s the way you want it to be. You want to make it look like it’s so easy, so natural.”
His first Santa venture was an emergency job, when Graham was building parade floats in Gatlinburg, Tenn., and the original performer had a heart attack. An older-hand Santa later tipped Graham off about a photo company that booked Santas, and that led to gigs at Great Smoky Mountains National Park, then in Tuscaloosa, Ala., with a team of live reindeer, then to what the company had called “a place up close to Washington, D.C.”
Graham only planned to stay at Tysons for a season, to parlay it into a slot in Hawaii. But halfway through, he recalled, mall management asked to see him during a break. A manager pointed to two big stacks of comment cards piled in a boardroom, all rave mallgoer reviews. His Santa was a hit.
Tysons Corner Center asked whether Graham might work for them exclusively. “And 38 years later,” he said, “I’m still here.”
I asked Graham in our interview about how the work and Tysons have changed, his favorite Christmas movie, and coal.
I emerged with parenting advice.
The following conversation has been edited for length and a bit for clarity.
1. The Fairfax Machine: What does a typical day look like as Santa?
Mike Graham: Well, in the morning you come in and get ready in whatever outfit you’re going to wear. This is what I call my “workshop Santa” outfit, and then I wear the traditional coat on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.
Joe [Santa’s “handler”] and I will usually go out to the escalator and do a big arrival, and I’ll do the big “Ho, ho, ho! Merry Christmas!”, come down, meet-and-greet with people that are standing around and people wanting pictures. And then we’ll work our way back to the set, where there’s usually a big, long line, and I’ll meet everybody all the way up to the front, just to say hi and ask them if they’ve got their wishes ready.
Then we’ll get started getting pictures. Today I’ll be sitting from 11 until 3, then take a break and hit it again until 7, and after I’ll go to different stores or restaurants or some [other] location in the mall for about an hour and a half and meet people coming by.
It does become somewhat tiresome, but the energy you get seeing the people pushes you through. People say, “How hard is that? You’re just sitting there.” Well, I say that’s perfect, because that’s the way you want it to be. You want to make it look like it’s so easy, so natural.
2. The Machine: So, you’ve been at Tyson’s1 from before the rise of the Internet to a time when 10-year-olds have smartphones.
Graham: Oh, man. I remember when electronics was just starting out, and kids were asking for that kind of stuff. And I’m just sitting here going, “Well, you really have to be able to to handle it. We don’t want you to destroy it, you know. It’s not a toy.”
Today, it doesn’t matter. They ask for all this stuff that’ll just blow your mind. Cars. Computers.
The Machine: How else has the gig changed over the past 38 years here?
Graham: Really it’s the same thing — just the kids want something different, more expensive, because they’re exposed to a whole lot more. That’s where it’s changed a tremendous amount.
The kids are great. Kids are kids. It changes when they get older, but it did back then, just not to the same extreme that we have today, because they have more information. How many kids have you seen with their faces stuck in [their screens] while they’re walking? They’re not engaging with people, so it makes a big difference. That’s one of the things I see, the direct talking ability of kids.
I don’t know if you have children or not.
The Machine: Not yet. But my wife and I talk all the time about what we would do as parents.
Graham: Okay. When you have children, you want to teach them to talk with you, not [to be] talking at them. It’s the eye contact that makes the connection. I can sit here and do this [looks down] all day long, and you wouldn’t feel very connected to me at all.
[Some kids] don’t want to engage because everything’s flashed in front of them, so they don’t know how to hold a conversation or start a conversation or even add to the conversation. So that’s a big thing that’s changed, too.
3. The Machine: What about the mall? Do you remember what was around?
Graham: Oh golly, yeah. When I first started, the second floor used to be the first floor. They built all this underneath here the year that I came. They opened all this up. Where Macy’s is now, that used to be Hecht’s department store. And then right here, this section that we’re sitting next to—you’ve been here a while—
Passing children: Santa! Hi, Santa!
Graham [deep-baritone Santa voice]: Merrrry Christmas!
Passing children: Can I have some candy? Candy?
Graham [Santa voice]: No candy! [laughs jollily]
Children: Awww.
Graham [normal voice, to The Machine]: They don’t give candy out anymore. Choking hazard. Liability.
But anyways, this right here [points] way back when, used to be Rainforest Cafe. They’ve been gone for a long time, but it was a big deal.
Twelve, 15 years [ago] they built this other section onto the mall, and it used to be JC Penney. Down where the big high-rises are, that used to be Circuit City. And then there used to be a little strip center out there, and that’s where they had parking. So many changes.
4. The Machine: What was Christmas like for you growing up?
Graham: We grew up very poor. We didn’t have much. We never knew Santa other than that he would show up and there would be a present for us.
I didn’t know that you could even go see Santa until I was way in my teens.
5. The Machine: Do you have a favorite Christmas movie?
Graham: Christmas Vacation. [laughs merrily] And, you know, It’s a Wonderful Life is great. Miracle on 34th Street is great. I love funny movies, heartfelt movies. It’s [about] having the family around to enjoy.
6. The Machine: Coal in recent years has become a flashpoint over its climate impacts. Is it time for Santa to consider updating what he gives bad kids?
Graham: Well, how about nothing? How about not rewarding the bad behavior? That’s exactly what you do.
The Machine: That’s a parenting tip, too.
Graham: Yeah, exactly. And kids don’t even know what coal is.
7. The Machine: A source tells The Machine that Mommy was seen kissing Santa Claus. Any response?
Graham: Is giving affection a bad thing? A lot of kisses on the cheeks?2
8. The Machine: What are the stories that have stayed with you from this work?
Graham: Wow, so many. I had this little one stuck in my head for many, many years. They come up, and I always ask, “Well, what would you like for Christmas?”, and we have a dialogue. And [this child] said, “Santa, why do you give presents?” And this is one of the things that we forget growing up and how it applies.
I go, “Well, the reason I give gifts is because God gave the best gift of all. He gave his son for us, and we do this in remembrance of what God did for us. We give gifts to somebody else that we love, and we want them to feel better. That’s what God did for us, and that’s why we celebrate Christmas: his birthday, his gift.” And parents will all come in and want to talk and stuff like that and listen in.
And here’s this one other. There was a doctor in McLean practice, and we struck up a conversation, and he said, “Santa, I really don’t want anything. What I’m here for is that I’m a pediatric doctor, and I have parents that send me pictures all the time of their children. I have a board in my office that’s got all these pictures of their kids with Santa, and 95% plus are you. How can I not come and see you?”
He took it out of his day to come down here to tell me that. That was just amazing and just, wow.
9. The Machine: I wanted to follow up that, maybe even over these 40 years, there’s been such a commercialization of the holiday. And you were touching on the faith aspect, which I think a lot of Christians wish was more front and center. Are you faithful yourself? Are you a religious person?
Graham: Oh, I am. Yeah. I believe that God has provided everything in this world, this universe. He gave us the only way to be with him forever, and that’s through his son, and I am focused 100%, and I am not ashamed.
10. The Machine: How has your Santa persona evolved over the years? Do you feel like you’ve grown into the role as you’ve gotten older?
Graham: You get more comfortable with it, especially here, where I know more of the people and [some of] the babies that I had in my arms are grown and they’ve got babies. And those babies have started getting to that age.
11. The Machine: Do you ever think about hanging up the hat?
Graham: I don’t see myself retiring [from] doing this or retiring in my regular job. I love working. This is a lot of fun.
Tysons Corner Center takes care of me very, very well. Our relationship is great. They give me no limitations on what I can say or do, you know; we just do it. We make it happen.
Tysons did nearly drop Graham in 2008 — until thousands wrote in and threatened to boycott.
The song never explicitly states that Mommy and Santa Claus kissed on the lips, but “underneath the mistletoe” does pretty strongly imply it, according to The Machine’s linguistic computations.
Excellent story. Merry Christmas!
Great Q&A. The cal question made me laugh.