50 years a Santa -- and counting: Veteran Santa Bill Lane will greet kids at Ladera center on Saturday 50 years a Santa -- and counting: Veteran Santa Bill Lane will greet kids at Ladera center on Saturday (December 03, 2003)

By Marion Softky

Almanac Staff Writer

Up at the North Pole, the real Santa Claus could take some lessons from Bill Lane of Portola Valley.

For 50 years, Mr. Lane has been playing Santa around the world. Unlike the fellow up yonder, who's always really rushed, packing and delivering toys, Mr. Lane takes the time to get up close and personal with his clients. He takes individual requests, preferably within earshot of parents.

"Sometimes kids come with lists," Mr. Lane says, practicing a jolly Ho-ho-ho. "I never promise. Sometimes I'll say, 'if you're really good ...' "

This Saturday, December 6, Santa will roll into the Ladera shopping center at 11:30 a.m. aboard a Woodside fire truck. He'll cuddle kids and take orders until 1 p.m.

Mr. Lane donned his first Santa suit in 1953, when he was working in the editorial department at Sunset magazine, then run by his father, the late Larry Lane. "I had to wear a pillow then," he quips.

Since then he was a regular Santa at Sunset until the magazine was sold in 1989. This will be the 14th year he's shown up at Ladera.

This is also a Santa who travels. In 1975, when Mr. Lane was an ambassador in Japan, he did Santa for the world at the International Oceans Exposition in Okinawa, at the south end of the Japanese island chain. Because Okinawa is fairly far north, Mr. Lane says, "The reindeer were fresh as all get-out."

Not so, when Mr. Lane was a summer Santa during the three years he was U.S. ambassador to Australia, in 1986, '87, and '88.

This Santa drives more than reindeer. At Sunset, he once arrived in a horse-drawn buggy driven by his father. Several times, he rode in on his palomino horse, Poco, once leading a palomino filly named Jennifer.

And back when Stanley Hiller was building helicopters on Willow Road near the Bay, Santa flew in on a helicopter piloted by Mr. Hiller. Another time he arrived in a Palo Alto police car driven by his son-in-law, Greg Munks, now undersheriff for San Mateo County.

When he's not busy dressing in red and ho-ho-hoing, Mr. Lane has a super-full schedule of philanthropy and good works. He serves on half a dozen boards for organizations, ranging from the California State Parks Foundation, to the Hoover Institution and the Commonwealth Club.

In October, he joined then-governor-elect Schwarzenegger's Environmental Policy Task Force, and pushed policies to strengthen parks, air and water protection, and education, he says.

One of Mr. Lane's current projects is to restore the base of Lower Yosemite Falls to its appearance as John Muir described a century ago.

But in his Santa Claus role, Mr. Lane has one message: "Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night."

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