Building on the growing success and popularity of the Bristol Christmas Festival, Michael Reilly and Dave Scarpino, members of the James D. Reilly Foundation (who are also on the Christmas Festival Committee), came before the Town Council at the last meeting to propose the siting of a temporary Santa House at State and Thames Streets.

The overlap of the two organizations is no surprise — James D. Reilly was Santa, with 62 years under his big black belt. His grandson, Michael, has carried on his grandfather’s storied tradition.

The Santa House will be an initiative of the James D. Reilly Foundation, but will work in concert with the Christmas Festival Committee. The 14 by 20 foot structure is a ready-built shed with a front porch.

“When it's delivered, we will transition it to an authentic Santa house with a cupola,” said Scarpino. “It will look Christmassy.” It will also be temporary and seasonal. “When the town shutters all of its lights, we're going to remove the house…it will come up together and go down together,” said Scarpino. They propose that the house itself will be wrapped and stored in the offseason at a local boatyard.

“I’m just curious about what you're going to do there,” asked Councilor Mary Parella. “Is Santa going to be in there at certain times?”

“We talked about the where, the what, and the when, but we haven't really talked about the why,” said Reilly. “I don't want it to be confused with pictures with Santa. You certainly will be able to get pictures with Santa. But this is available for children with special needs that can't go to a mall.”

Noting that they don’t anticipate making money on this effort, Reilly said, “This is really our gift to the community. And it is part of Christmas and that's why we want to be associated with the Christmas festival; we'll also be working with other nonprofit organizations. We want to have the grand opening of the of the Santa house to coincide with Jen Mancieri’s annual community fund drive.”

The gift that gives back
In addition to providing an accessible space for all, the Christmas Festival Committee, together with the James D. Reilly Foundation, are working with other community stakeholders from Linden Place to Unity Park.

“We want to make sure that everybody's successful…we want to be sure that everybody in town enjoys the crowd,” said Scarpino.

“There is another Santa Claus house in the country — it’s in Midland, Michigan,” said Reilly. “That house gets 100,000 visitors at Christmas time…I know the owners, I know a lot of the businesses around and they benefit from that traffic.”

“I think this is adds a lot of charm and spirit to the town, making it a destination,” said Councilor Tim Sweeney. “And this is going to touch a lot of adults and kids for years to come, so I'm definitely in support.” The council approved the initiative unanimously, subject to the approval of the HDC and Zoning departments.