Secret Santa takes stock as he makes his rounds throughout the region

This Santa covers about 250 miles on Christmas Eve to visit about 40 homes.
By STEPHEN SIFF
VINDICATOR TRUMBULL STAFF
NILES -- When it comes down to it, Santa is really a softie.
"There are no bad children Christmas Eve," says James Thomas, stockbroker by day, chuckling as he checks over his list of the 40 homes for at least the second time.
"At least they all say they aren't bad."
He ought to know. For 26 years, he has donned a red velvet suit and spent Christmas Eve dashing from house to house -- from Niles to Cortland to Sharpsville to Hermitage, from West Middlesex to Farrell to Vienna and Howland, then the final place of them all, Warren.
Keeping secret: Over the years, he has traveled sections of the 250-mile, 12-hour circuit by horse, cop car, off-road vehicle, Winnebago and rental car, to preserve his secret identity, should anyone trace the plates.
This year, he took his new red PT Cruiser, bedecked with neon.
He makes his day-before-Christmas rounds on his own time and at his own expense.
The only paid help over the years was a van load of Hooters waitresses he once contracted to play the part of reindeer at one house full of overgrown children.
Santa has presented state troopers with candy canes, and passengers on country group Alabama's tour bus once slowed down to wave as he drove by.
Strangers have pulled him into their homes and encouraged him to join them in shots of liquor, but the beard always gets in the way.
"If I ever ate, I'd wind up with a furball," he said.
How it began: Thomas, 54, got into the Santa game as a young man. A friend with a large family put him up to it, so the children in the family wouldn't be able to figure out who was behind the beard.
He enjoyed it, and when the next Christmas rolled around, Thomas had gotten his custom-made suit.
Two-and-a-half decades later, the suit is now on its third set of fur.
"It's fun," Thomas said. "I like the way it makes me feel."
Over the years, the number of stops on Thomas' Santa train has expanded to more friends, friends of friends and relatives.
Waiting for him: He's become a Christmas tradition. At one home, he expects to find a 17-year-girl peeking out the window looking for him, as she has every year since she was 3.
"The adults like it as much as the kids," he said.
This year, Thomas will make some of his rounds accompanied by a mini-Santa, Caleb Kerins of Hermitage, who has been taking his own Santa act to a local nursing home.
"He just loves Santa Claus," Thomas said.
But the brown-haired, cleanshaven, comfortably built Thomas is more than just a seasonal Santa and a mild-mannered stockbroker.
With a white jumpsuit decorated with $300 worth of rhinestones, he's a credible Elvis of the "You Gonna Eat That Jelly Donut" era.
The reactions to "Ho, ho, ho," and "Thank you, thank you very much" are not that far apart, he says.
"Santa you can sort of explain," he said of followers of the jolly old elf.
"Elvis fans are crazy."