EDITOR’S NOTEBOOK -- MARY BETH P. ADOMAITIS

When I was a child, Christmas was my very favorite time of the year.

I come from a large family -- four sisters and three brothers -- and I

am the youngest, and as some siblings would say, the most spoiled. So the

holidays around our house were always full of hustle and bustle, and I

enjoyed every minute of them.

My fondest memory was when I was about 4 or 5 years old, and my

father’s company -- White Motors -- had its annual Christmas party. I

remember attending one of these parties and walking out into the cold and

snowy Ohio wintry air carrying a rather large Queen of Hearts tea set. It

was beautiful -- red tin cups and saucers with the Queen of Hearts on

them. Even the teapot was decorated the same. I had it for a long time,

and I’m sure it would be a collector’s item today.

One of the things I also remember about this Christmas party was Santa

Claus. Being the youngest in my family, I was the last to find out the

truth about Ol’ St. Nick.

For the longest time, I actually believed that when you jiggled the

loose brick in my parents’ living room fireplace on Christmas Eve, the

chimney would open up and Santa would have room to come down.

It’s so wonderful to be young and naive like that. And Santa Claus is

a great dream to believe in. When else in your life can you actually go

to sleep at night and wake up in the morning to find toys, clothes and

candy galore underneath the Christmas tree -- and actually believe that

he brought it for you because you’ve been good.

But as the saying goes, behind every good man stands a great woman.

And so is true with Santa.

Here in Huntington Beach, Mrs. Claus has been as much a part of the

holidays as her husband. For more than 15 years in the 1980s and 1990s, the couple -- played by longtime Surf City residents Charles and Betty

Vahldick -- visited with and listened to youngsters’ Christmas wishes at

the Seacliff Village Shopping Center until the old mall was closed down

several years ago for remodeling.

I recently learned from the Vahldick’s daughter, Marjorie Green, that

her mother passed away this summer after a bout with cancer. She was 74.

Her holiday spirit and presence with her husband will no doubt be missed.

The Vahldicks and their daughter played the jovial Claus clan until

the mid-1990s, when the shutting down of the shopping center a couple of

years ago left the family without a holiday home. Since that time, Santa

and Mrs. Claus and their daughter dressed up and have visited youngsters

at Patty’s Preschool in Huntington Beach and the Mommy and Me toddler

program sponsored by the city.

“Seventeen years ago, I went to Santa training school, and soon after,

I brought Dad into it,” Marjorie said. “And somewhere down the line, Mom

needed to join in, and she was the perfect Mrs. Claus.”

Betty worked alongside her husband each year as his helper and

photographer. She photographed the children on Santa’s lap and from what

her daughter told me, clearly enjoyed the experience as much as her

husband.

The couple was extremely popular too.

Many of the parents who took their children to visit him made the trip

to see this particular Santa and Mrs. Claus -- as they did every year.

Families that had moved from Huntington Beach came back every year just

to see them.

“Everyone from newborns to grandmas came to see them,” Marjorie said.

But a lot has changed over the last several years. With the closure of

the old Seacliff Village Shopping Center, Betty’s passing and Charles

getting a little bit older, the Vahldick family has slowed down their

Christmas visits.

This year, the father-and-daughter team has made a few visits with

some local youngsters, but it’s nothing like the days gone by.

And while I didn’t know Betty Vahldick, except from what her daughter

had told me about her, I know that her memory lives on this holiday

season to those who knew and loved her as Mrs. Claus.

* MARY BETH P. ADOMAITIS is the city editor of the Independent. She

can be reached at [email protected]