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Winters is the aptly-named evening Santa at the Rosedale Center in Roseville. A resident of North St. Paul, “Santa” poses for pictures and greets children all night in the mall.

“I started it about seven years ago,” Winters said. “I did car shows, and I did it for the kids at car shows. The street rods would have their big meeting and I’d show up and be Santa for them. Then I started with a couple of daycares and that, and people kept saying that I looked so much like Santa that I should do the mall.”

Once he started working at Rosedale three years ago, Winters fell in love with the job.

“There’s nothing in the world like seeing a little kid around that corner and they run and jump in your arms,” Winters said. “I look forward to coming here every day, just to see the kids’ faces when they whisper in my ear.”

Many children rush up to the display, delighted to see ol’ St. Nick in person.

“Can I go see Santa?” one young girl asked her mother while walking through the mall on Wednesday night. The mother obliged, and both were promptly greeted by a smiling Winters. He is a natural with children, just as jovial and spirited as Santa should be.

“It’s a special feeling,” he said.

Carl Immediato, of Bloomington, has been playing Santa since 1996. He agrees that there’s an indescribable joy he gets from spreading the Christmas spirit. “Certain people call it a blessing,” Immediato said. “I do not work at this. When I get out in front of kids, I don’t even think of it as an act.”

Winters, especially, doesn’t have to act. He looks like Santa year-round. “I had to go to the courthouse today, and I walked in and I was asking for an address,” he said. “The lady behind the desk said, ‘Santa, if you don’t know, how are we supposed to know?’”

Winters, 53, sports a natural beard; he hasn’t shaved in a couple of years. Even in everyday clothing while wandering the neighborhoods of St. Paul, he carries candy canes to give to children.

The job isn’t all candy canes and sugar plums, though. “[The children] tell you the sad things, too,” he said. “One little girl came here, it was about two years ago, and they had just gotten through burying a baby brother. They came here to the mall; the mom thought that was going to cheer her up.”

He said that sometimes children ask only for socks without holes, or for clothing that isn’t handed down from older siblings. “I’d like to take them over to one of the stores in the mall and buy them new stockings,” he said. “It’s just the look in the children’s eyes when they see you. They’ll tell you things they won’t tell other people. I tell them how proud I am of them, and how Santa loves them and everything’s going to work out for them.”

Then there is the task of calming children who are nervous or afraid. “The kids get very nervous when they come on your lap,” he said. “You can see them fidgeting with their hands, then they go blank and can’t think of what they want. I tell them, ‘That’s all right. Everyone gets that way. Let’s just take the picture and talk about it afterwards.’ That usually comes through.”

For those extreme cases, Santa pulls out toys from a special bag to distract and calm the children. Winters himself wasn’t always the easiest for mall Santas to deal with.

“My mom is surprised by me being Santa Claus,” he said. “I was the kind of kid, when I was small, that went up to Santa and pulled his beard until it came off.” Some of the older children walking by yelled out, “fake,” and he said that this bothers him. Winters is genuine and so is his spirit.”I’ve been blessed,” he said.

Lost in a sea of corporatism, deep inside a suburban shopping center, is the hidden story not of a mall Santa, but the fable and soul of Santa himself. One boy heading into a nearby store said, “He’s not really Santa.” His mother cheerfully replied, “He’s as close as you’ll get.” That much is true.

Five questions for Santa (Larry Winters):

What are the strangest gift requests?
The little kids ask for cell phones. Or computers. I mean, five or six years old and they want a computer. Laptops, even.

Why do you think children are sometimes scared of Santa?
It seems like between two, two-and-a-half years, that’s when they’re the most scared. And then when they hit three, they’re all right. It could be the beard, the suit.

Do you believe in Santa?
Days I do. The people look at you and you just believe. I feel bad when the kids yell out “Fake!” You’d be surprised how many older people come in here and tug the beard.

What’s so special about Christmastime?
People are friendlier. Otherwise, you could walk through the mall and nobody would say hi. It’s just magic.

Do any adults sit on your lap?
Many from your school, Bethel, St. Thomas, the U of M, come here to get pictures. They get pictures and then send them to their parents.and nobody would say hi. It’s just magic.