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During a brief break from overseeing toy making in the North Pole, Santa Claus took a few minutes to chat with Time Out New York this month about his love for New York City. For the interview, he donned an elegant burgundy version of his classic red suit embroidered with sparkling snowflakes and the word "Believe." Of course, he finished off the look with a hat, white gloves and jingle bells on his boots.
Santa gave us the scoop on his favorite NYC Christmas traditions, how he gets around town and what the movie Elf got right. If you want to hang out with him this holiday season, he'll be at The Plaza Hotel in Manhattan on a bunch of days in December. Until then, here's our full interview with Santa, lightly edited for clarity.
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To start, can you tell us who you are and where we are?
My name is Santa Claus, also known as St. Nick. I'm from the North Pole. But when I come to New York City, I come to the most magical place in New York City, which is The Plaza Hotel.
Is there a way to get to the North Pole on public transit?
I don't use public transport. Number one, I can't because I get recognized too much. But I've got hangars at every airport around the world. You can't see them; they're invisible. So I have a sleigh right now over at LaGuardia Airport with some reindeer in training, and I keep a car there. So what I do is I fly in, jump in the car and drive over to The Plaza. Works out well for me.
What's your favorite thing about delivering toys in New York City?
It's not just New York City—it's all over.
New York City's hard to deliver toys to because there's so many people in one building, and I then utilize a lot of my elves to be able to help me out. But I make it to everybody's home, so everybody knows that I've been there because I have to eat lots of cookies.
Where do you like people to get cookies for you? What New York City bakeries?
I feel that the best cookies I can ever have are the cookies that you make because they're made with love and made from the heart. It could be oatmeal raisin, it could be sugar, it could be snickerdoodles, it could be chocolate chip. I know that you made them because you love me, and that makes it that much better.
Which New York City neighborhood has the best chimneys?
The newer buildings make it a little bit more difficult because there aren’t that many fireplaces. But if you go to the older buildings, like if you go into the Upper West Side on Central Park West where you have those beautiful old pre-war buildings, they all have fireplaces and great chimneys to come down.
How do you get into apartments that don't have fireplaces?
Magic. Everything's done with magic. My sleigh takes off with magic—if you recall in Elf, which was actually fairly accurate. Ed Asner did a good job portraying me. What was actually fairly real was when we were in Central Park—and I was a consultant on this—when they started singing and the sleigh took off, that's the magic of Christmas.
What are a few things you have to do in New York when you're staying here?
I don't like to spend a lot of money because I have to save the money to buy gifts, so I like to go to Grand Central Station because you've got the beautiful ceiling there and everything pretty much is for free. You have the holiday fair that happens in Grand Central Station. A lot of the people don't know about the whispering walls in there.
Bryant Park Winter Village. I like to watch the skaters at Rockefeller Center. I love going into St. Patrick's Cathedral. It's so Christmassy and beautiful.
And then just walking down Fifth Avenue. There's nothing better than seeing all the lights and decorations. There's something about the holiday season after Thanksgiving where you can walk down Fifth Avenue, and I can look you in the eye and you'll smile at me, which won't happen after January. During Christmastime, there's that feeling of love and that feeling of happiness. And I think it's something that we should have all year round.