Life as Santa

When Santa arrives in Hawaii on Christmas Eve, he trades his sleigh for an outrigger canoe. He rides the waves — delivered by paddlers, not reindeer — and comes to a stop at Gray’s Beach in front of the Halekulani hotel in Waikiki.

Children love it. Their parents, too. No long winter’s nap for anyone here. It’s a joyous mob scene on the shore.

If you ask Gene DiCicco, he wouldn’t have it any other way. The jolly old elf — who’s really a California rose grower who retired and moved to Kona — has celebrated Christmas this way for 11 years.

"People are yelling and screaming and clapping," DiCicco, 71, says of the welcome he receives.

There are usually so many people — DiCicco estimates almost 1,000 — that he can barely see the sand between his toes. (Yes, this Santa travels barefoot. And in surf trunks.)

"Lately, what is happening is there are so many people we have to have security make a space so I can get in," he says. "I’ve been so mobbed I could barely get in."

Santa’s afternoon canoe arrival has been a tradition for Halekulani guests for 29 years, which is about the same length of time DiCicco and his family have been traveling to the hotel for Christmas.

He remembers seeing the Halekulani’s previous Santa during a hotel party and says the guy was "kind of mangy looking." The next day, DiCicco told the hotel he could do a better job and volunteered on the spot to do it for free.

He didn’t learn until much later that he would be riding to shore in a canoe, but the boat has never capsized and — this is his greatest concern — DiCicco hasn’t tripped and fallen while getting out of the vessel.

"I always think about that," he says. "So far in 11 years I haven’t — knock on wood."

DiCicco’s wife of 41 years, Mary DiCicco, says her husband was never a Santa anywhere else. When they lived in Watsonville, Calif., he helped raise funds for community causes, was a Rotary International president and served on the board of directors for an area hospital.

But he’s the perfect Santa, she says.

"This man has a heart of gold," says Mary DiCicco, who’s also 71. "He loves doing it and he loves to see a happy kid. That’s his nature. He will give you the shirt off his back."

Children recognize DiCicco when he and his wife are at the Halekulani pool before the big arrival.

"They will see him and tiptoe past him," Mary DiCicco says. "It’s really cute. They will say, ‘Don’t you need to get your toys ready?’ And he says, ‘I have good elves who are hard workers.’"

Mothers recognize him, too.

"Sometimes if a child is not behaving well, a mother will say, ‘You know, Santa is watching,’" Mary DiCicco says.

CHRISTMAS wasn’t always this much fun for DiCicco. In fact, when he was growing up in San Mateo, Calif., he didn’t like Christmas at all. His parents owned a flower shop and the holidays were the busiest time of the year.

"As a young kid, I didn’t know what Christmas was like," he says. "All I knew is Christmas is busy. The whole month of December was busy. Come Christmas Eve, when everyone is at home opening packages, I am out on the road helping the delivery guy deliver flowers."

And they were open on Christmas Day, too.

Sometimes family members exchanged gifts, he says, but they didn’t have a tree in the apartment where they lived behind the flower shop.

"Christmas to me was a time that everybody else got to enjoy themselves and we would be slaving along," he says.

As an adult, though, growing and shipping flowers out of Watsonville, DiCicco says, his family celebrated Christmas. In 1983, DiCicco made Hawaii part of his family’s holidays. Every year since, he and his wife, along with various other family members, have spent Christmas at the Halekulani.

They exchange gifts, too. Everyone draws names out of a hat, he says.

"We decided that would be our Christmas," he says.

Of course, once he put on his Santa suit for the first time, the holiday came to mean much more. On the beach or in a canoe, Santa makes everyone smile.

"I guess it makes you feel like a celebrity," DiCicco says. "Everybody likes you. People are coming up. They want their picture taken with you. It’s quite an experience."

When Santa has finished with Christmas in Hawaii, he doesn’t go home right away. Instead, he eats brunch on Christmas Day. Then he immediately gets a shave and a haircut from a barber at the Halekulani.

"I have a standing appointment at 1 p.m.," DiCicco says. "I am in there for about an hour and by the time I’m done it looks like they’ve sheared a sheep. There is hair everywhere."

Funny thing is, everyone still recognizes him. But not as DiCicco — as Santa.