Santa Claus with local roots lives on

by Bill Conrad of Lancaster TODAY

Christmas was Larry Bora's favorite time of the year. He loved it so much that for the last 20 years of his life he served as a professional Santa.

That's right, a professional Santa Claus. Each Christmas Bora would dress up in his homemade Santa outfit, which combined with his own grey hair and beard, made him look exactly like Kris Kringle himself. The Christmas season saw Bora play Santa at parades, shopping malls and other events where he greeted thousands of children a year and tried to bring joy and Christmas cheer to everyone he saw.

So when Bora died last December at the age of 69, his family thought his days of playing Santa were over. Thanks to what his sister can only describe as a Christmas miracle, Bora has continued playing Santa even after his death.

“In November 2006, he found out he had cancer [lymphoma],” said Suzanne Maxwell, Bora's sister. “The doctors told him he had between six and 12 months left. I was going to wait until January to go visit him in the hospital but by some miracle, a cheap air fare popped up on the computer in early December. It was too good to pass up.”

The doctor's estimation had been incorrect, and by December, Bora's health was failing fast.

“When I got there he was in the hospital,” Maxwell said. “He was really upset that he wouldn't be able to play Santa that year. We all prayed that he would be able to. We prayed for a Christmas miracle. But he didn't live that long and he passed away on Dec. 18.”

Maxwell, who has worked at the Lovin' Oven bakery on the Lancaster Town Square for 28 years and owned it for the last 22, thought her brothers days of bringing joy to children were over.

“God answers prayers in mysterious ways,” Maxwell said. “The day after he died, Yahoo happened to put up his picture on their front page (on the site's Santa tracker.) It stayed up there from Dec. 19 until Christmas. He did end up getting to play Santa last year. He got to play it for the entire world.”

The Christmas surprises for Maxwell continued this year, as Bora once again got to play Santa in the Best Southwest area.

“I shop at Brookshires almost every day, just picking up small things that I need,” Maxwell said. “ About two weeks ago I got their Christmas sale flier in the mail and when I opened it up, there he was on page three. I broke down and cried when I saw that. As a professional Santa, he had photographers that took pictures of him and paid him to use his image, so I guess one of them sold the images to Yahoo and Brookshires to use.”

Bora didn't become a professional Santa who was seen all over the world over night. While he lived in West Virginia at the time of his death, he got his start as a professional Santa in the mid 1980s while living in Texas.

“He started playing Santa for the women's group down in Waxahachie more than 20 years ago,” Maxwell said. “When he started out, he didn't have grey hair or a beard. However, he turned grey pretty early in life and after that, he grew out his beard and hair for his Santa outfit.”

Bora played Santa in Texas for around 10 years, before moving back to West Virginia around 1999. Maxwell said that while he lived in Texas, he played Santa for theatre groups in Waxahachie and Cedar Hill, as well as on the Town Square in Lancaster.

In a way, playing Santa is what Bora was born to do. Maxwell said Bora's main goal in life was to help others.

“Larry was involved in a lot of activities helping people,” she said. “He was a volunteer for years at the soup opera in Fairmont, W.Va. It was a soup kitchen to feed the homeless. Every Friday night he was there volunteering his time to help the needy. He also volunteered at the Veteran's Administration Hospital counseling other amputees. He was an amputee due to diabetes, but it never stopped him and no one knew unless he told them he had only one leg. You could get him down, but you could not keep him down.”

Bora was 12 years older than Maxwell and she said he was like her second father. She also said he was a talented artist, whose work was shown at art shows.

“He was commissioned to do paintings for churches,” Maxwell said. “He also did one man art shows several times a year.”

Even with all his other hobbies and his volunteer service, his main passion in life was playing Santa each Christmas.

“His true love was being Santa for the children,” Maxwell said. “He was in the Christmas Parade every year and his picture was on billboards all over West Virginia. When he was Santa at the mall, people would hear his voice from far off and knew it was Santa. His voice carried, but it was not loud or harsh. It was truly what you think Santa should sound like. Many people have missed him and will continue to miss him. Him showing up on Yahoo, the day after he died was awesome. It told me that he was in heaven being Santa to all the children. And now with him appearing in the Brookshire's paper, he tells me that he is doing fine and he is where he is supposed to be.”