“Santa’s by the door!” a young girl squeals from inside her Aurora home. Mail carrier Doug Fischer hurries a little faster up the walk.
“Kids,” he says to himself from somewhere behind the flowing white beard he’s donned for the day. Then louder, “That’s what makes this all worthwhile.”
Fischer each year casts off the traditional blue uniform of his post for a plush red suit, fur-lined hat and a homemade false belly to deliver last-minute packages on Christmas Day, but his Aurora tour Friday may be his last as St. Nick.
Fischer expects to retire in February, after 28 years with the U.S. Postal Service, a dozen of those years spent volunteering for Christmas Day duty.
“It turned into a tradition. I just like seeing the reaction when people get their gifts,” he said. “I’ll miss it.”
He’s been hugged — a lot. He’s even signed an autograph or two. Nobody’s mean to Santa, he said.
And Fischer pulls off a convincing St. Nick, from the set of jingle bells dangling from his thick, black belt to a pair of slightly tinted spectacles.
He removes a black glove to program the GPS device that guides his sleigh — a small, square Postal Service truck — in the absence of reindeer.
He groans a little as he disembarks, envelope in hand, at a home on Quentin Street in Aurora Friday morning.
“It’s harder and harder to get out of this thing,” says Fischer, 56.
Sometimes, as in this case, nobody’s home.
Sometimes the adults look a little confused before breaking into smiles, like Samuel Demissie did when he opened his door later that morning.
Demissie wasn’t expecting a gift, let alone a visit from St. Nick, he said.
“I was really surprised. It’s my first present from Santa,” Demissie said, grinning. “I’m happy.”
But it’s the kids, Fischer said, who are the best part.
The excited girl, 7-year-old Channy Reynolds, had opened her presents for the day, all but the one Santa delivered from her grandfather in California.
The towheaded child rushed in for a hug with a little encouragement from her mother, Gina Orphui.
“We called (my father) and said, ‘You’re never going to believe who delivered it. It was Santa,’ ” Orphui said. “That was very nice.”
And Channy wasn’t the only child enthralled at a Santa sighting that stop. Two children in the house next door peeked wide-eyed through the curtains before cracking open their front door to say hello.
A father in another neighbor’s house ushered his children out into the snow just in time to wave goodbye.
As he guided his sleigh toward the next stop on his last holiday voyage, Fischer called out, “Merry Christmas!”
Jessica Fender: 303-954-1244 or jfender@denverpost.com
