Thomas Tolbert, 53, (aka “Santa Claus”) came from a family in Roswell, Georgia, that would load a truck with toys and food and deliver them to homes in the area.
Since he returned to the mall for his second season at the beginning of November, he has seen familiar faces, like a teen girl who told him last year that she wanted her divorced parents to stop fighting for Christmas. At the time, he had a stern talk with her father and then bought the teenager and her two siblings personalized ornaments at a holiday shop as a consolation. Then in May, the family sent him a letter through the mall saying that they have been getting along much better.
Tolbert also has at least one regular visitor this year: A little girl with special needs swings by about once a week, and he stops the line so that the two can dance the jitterbug, the waltz, or “we just clap our hands and move.”
Not to mention he looks so much like Santa Claus that he made headlines in 2012 when children kept coming up to him at Disney World and asking him for autographs.