Earlier this month, local Santa Bernie Laframboise’s Santa suit went missing. In an effort to save Christmas this year, seamstress Maarit Steinwedel decided to donate her time to make a new suit for him.
“I saw on Facebook that he was looking for someone who was supposed to be altering his new suit for him. He had just bought a new suit for $1200 and is looking for her to get the suit back,” said Steinwedel, who has been a seamstress for 30 years now.
“I think that, although Christmas has been commercialized a lot, seeing Santa is something for young kids to be excited about and it’s something magical,” she said.
Santa Bernie started playing Santa over 10 years ago when one of his friends who lived in a co-op asked him to be Santa for them. “It was just a good experience all the way around and it was something worth repeating,” he said.
Laframboise has played Santa at locations all over town, including the Festival of Trees, the Mill Market, Prouse Motors, Highland Ford, local dance studios and even some home visits.
“I thought the least I could do was donate my time to make a new suit for him, just in case he doesn’t get it back in time,” she said. “I reached out to him and told him that I would do it free of charge and the only thing I was looking for was to have the fabric costs covered.”
You may have seen Steinwedel’s costumes around town as she has sewn costumes for the ADSB performance of Cats and volunteered to develop costumes for several of Korah Collegiate’s musical theatre performances, the latest being The Little Mermaid.
“When I lived in southern Ontario I designed and developed costumes for several dance studios, including the Nutcracker Ballet,” she said.
After several people came forward and donated enough money for the fabric, it was decided that anything extra would go towards the children’s program at ARCH. Approximately $1000 was raised and will be donated to ARCH. Santa Bernie’s suit is now finished and ready for the season.
One of the main reasons why Steinwedel decided to step forward and help Bernie is because she had gone through some tough times this year herself. Earlier this year she had bought a new house, and the repairs set her back tens of thousands of dollars. In March her car was stolen. On top of that, Steinwedel suffered a heart attack in June which required emergency surgery.
“When this happened to Santa (his suit going missing) I just knew that I had to pay it forward. It was the least I could do. He needs a suit for this season and I wanted him to have a suit that he was proud of,” she said.
“There needs to be more caring and compassion in the world today. This year of all years has been challenging for not only me but for everyone. So this was the least I could do, give a little magic to Santa Bernie,” she said.