Foxcroft Academy’s hand-crafted Santa-reindeer display an iconic part of D-F holiday season
By Ernie Clark, Bangor Daily News Staff
When Grace Chase first conceptualized Santa Claus and his nine galloping reindeer — including Rudolph — gliding through the holiday season in front of Foxcroft Academy in the early 1950s, the former longtime school secretary couldn’t have anticipated her idea’s staying power.
Sixty-seven years after its debut, the hand-crafted display is back at its prominent West Main Street location, fostering images of Santa’s Christmas Eve sojourn in the mind of every child who passes by or who stops with their parents for a closer look.
“It’s one of a kind,” Foxcroft Academy Superintendent of Buildings and Grounds Tom Nason said. He and his staff are charged with the display’s upkeep. “When you hand-make something like that, you can never get anything just like it again. It’s a great design.”
The display, which is kept in a secret location throughout the year, is especially vivid this holiday season thanks to a complete repainting, which Nason said is done every few years.
SANTA AND HIS REINDEER — Santa Claus leads his reindeer as part of Foxcroft Academy’s iconic holiday display, which was built in 1953
The display was erected a little early in 2020 to provide some community cheer amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
But its magic also stems from its origin in the school’s boiler room where Chase and her helpers — Henry Gerrish, William Levensalor, Lyle Macomber, Vivian Weatherbee and Roland Zwicker — spent countless hours turning her vision into reality in time for Christmas in 1953.
Santa and his reindeer were constructed with carefully shaped celastic, a plastic impregnated fabric that becomes moldable and adhesive when activated by immersion in solvent or with heat.
“There’s a wire frame in there, and then there’s [celastic] strips around it almost like you’d do papier mache,” Nason said. “It’s a rugged product, and it’s held together nicely.”
The sleigh and reindeer are connected by a runner system that was replaced this year using wood from the school’s recently replaced gymnasium bleachers.
“There’s all kinds of wood that hooks onto the reindeer to make them move, and it was getting worn really bad,” Nason said. “We had them pieced together, so this year we cut up some of the old boards that used to be our bleachers and built the new runner.”
The same washing-machine motor used in 1953 continues to power the display, from Rudolph’s red nose to all nine reindeer bobbing back and forth as if in flight to the next stop on their annual global journey.
HOLIDAY TRADITION — Santa Claus leads his reindeer, led by Rudolph on their annual display on the front lawn at Foxcroft Academy. The homemade display, built in 1953, has been a rite of the holiday season on the Dover-Foxcroft campus for more than six decades.
But even during the day, Santa and his reindeer set a festive tone for both the local community and fans of the holiday season far and wide.
“The 1953 Santa display allows for the Foxcroft Academy community to share our culture and traditions with all the students that attend Foxcroft Academy,” Head of School Arnold Shorey said. “In return, students from countries all over the world share their cultures, traditions and celebrations. It brings to life part of the academy’s vision of ‘building a global perspective.’
“I truly enjoy watching people pull over in their cars so that they can take pictures of the display.”
Nason said the display has held up remarkably well over the years. The only significant difference now is that while Santa’s right arm is upright to wave to passers-by, it no longer moves — the result of an act of vandalism in 1979.
The display does require regular maintenance to cope with the ravages of time and the elements, including the sometimes harsh northwest wind from nearby Oakes Field on campus.
“There’s usually not a day when we don’t have to do something,” Nason said. “There’s a lot of moving parts.”
John Sylvester, a vocational education teacher at the school, does much of the welding work these days, while buildings and grounds workers John Veno, Blaise Laffin, Jay Nutter, Chris Scott and Glenn Clawson all help in maintaining the display to ensure that Santa and his reindeer remain an integral part of the region’s holiday spirit.
“I guess that’s where we get most of our satisfaction,” Nason said. “We don’t want to change a thing. It’s so neat that their design and everything they did is still working other than [Santa’s] arm.
“The people who made this really had a vision, and it’s stood the test of time so far.”
But despite the reliable presence of Santa and his reindeer in front of Foxcroft Academy each Christmas season for nearly seven decades, there is talk about updating the display to ensure its long-term future. School officials already have approached alumni with experience in engineering and robotics to advance that discussion.
“It is fast approaching the time to redesign the mechanisms that provide the movement of Santa and the reindeer to ensure that it will run for another 67 years,” Nason said.