The ever resourceful and energetic Diane had been planning for some time to build large scale Father Christmas dolls for the families of each of her two children, Will and Nicole.

She had confided her plans to her mother-in-law Sylvia Segger one Christmas, the year Diane’s sister Kate had sent her a Father Christmas she had made from an old fur coat Diane had purchased and given to her for that purpose. When Sylvia was clearing out her house in 2013 in preparation for her move to the Tansley Wood Retirement Residence, she asked Diane if she would like to have her old muskrat fur coat to use in the project. The coat had not seen much wear since Sylvia and Norm moved to the GTA from Sudbury in 1988. This kind gift was the impetus for this project.

Diane spoke to Graham about the need for a ceramic or porcelain head to build the figurine around.  He took to the Internet and found a website for diandolls.com, a one woman enterprise dedicated to firing and painting clay dolls heads for Santa and Father Christmas projects.   We ordered two heads which arrived in Punta Gorda the day before we flew home to Canada with them secured in bubble wrap in our carry-on bag.  The slightly more “senior” looking Santa head in hercatalogue was unfortunately sold out.

Diane’s initial thought was to use tomato plant cages as the frame for the torso, but after unsuccessful visits to a half dozen garden centres and home improvement outlets around Mississauga, she decided to make the supporting structure from 36 inch lengths of four inch diameter tube (which we had saved from our chair refinishing fabric purchase in 2011).  Notice the bent coat hangers protruding on the picture to the left, first steps toward the right arm seen in the picture on the right and the feet.  Santa is a bit of a chubby fellow as we all know, so the next challenge was to turn that rather skinny tube into a robust body form.  For this Diane wrapped quilt batting around the tube and sculpted the body, one layer at a time.

After securing the Santa heads to the top of the tubes, the next step was to apply the hair and whiskers with her trusty hot glue gun, a very time consuming task.  The raw material also came from the diandolls.com website.  Diane has threatened that once she masters the technique, Graham is next!

Another brilliant idea which Diane came up with was how to source boots for these two fine fellows.  Stored in the basement was the array pictured below of her daughter Nicole’s baby shoes, lovingly preserved over many years.  Two pairs were spray painted black and repurposed as Santa’s boots.  Again, coat hangers were used to attach them to the figures.

A well dressed Father Christmas also needs a fine robe to wear under his fur coat.  Diane’s idea for this was to use the lining of Sylvia’s coat and the lining from another coat which had been used in an earlier project.

They are trés élégant!

The cutting and sewing of Santas’ fur coats was one of the trickier aspects of the project.  A local furrier, Fotis Bazinas at 269 Lakeshore Rd. East in Port Credit, gave Diane a few cutting tips and also sold her some cast off fur remnants which she was able to incorporate into the project to supplement her supply of fur from Sylvia’s coat.  Fotis does some amazing work reshaping (“carving”) old coats to update their style and has many interesting coats in stock.

The cuffs of the original coat were cut off from the sleeves and turned into hats for the two St. Nicks.

Gloves were also required so were sewn by Diane, complete with white fluffy cuffs.

Father Christmas is also rumoured to be a little near sighted, so Diane created some wire rimmed glasses for him using picture hanging wire.

Santa of course also needs a sack, so the seamstress called on one of Santa’s little helpers to assist with sewing two sacks out of an old velvet skirt which Diane no longer wears.  Nathan was fascinated with the sewing machine, as was Sidney on another occasion.  He has promised not to tell mom and pop about the project until Christmas.

The toys for the sack were sourced from a variety of old ornaments.  Small wooden sleds were found at Michaels and hand painted.  The rope tying the sack was originally sold as drapery tie-backs.  The staffs were from a garden centre and Diane attached some cardinals and bells which she dug out of her craft trunk.

Once the Father Christmas’ were complete, Diane asked Graham if he could make bases for them to stand on.  Again scavenging in the garage, he came up with some 1.5 inch square remnants which he cut and glued together.  With a bit of planing of the corners, two perfectly sized posts were created and screwed to a finished piece of pine purchased at Rona and cut in half.  The bases were then sanded, stained and readied for the tubes to be slotted over them.

Appropriately sized plastic containers were purchased for storage between seasons.

It was a big project, but one which Diane took a tremendous amount of pleasure and satisfaction in completing.