Goodbye, Mrs. Claus: A True Story by Nicky Elliott

I did indeed own a big red suit, from when I’d played Santa Claus at the local kindergarten. “What did you have in mind?” I chuckled.  

“You dress as Santa and hop in the back of the ute,” he suggested. “We’ll do a run down Moores Pocket Road, and throw out lollies for the kids.”

My little red-headed wife Judy, 22, was keen as mustard. “I’ll organise the lollies,” she offered, rushing out to buy assorted sweeties. We bagged them up, then at 5pm on Christmas Eve, 1974, Graydon and I set off along Moores Pocket Road in the ute, clanging a bell.  

Excited kids came running from all directions. “Santa! Santa!”  

I was bloody hot in that suit. “Have a beer, Santa!” offered the locals.

“Santa would have to take his beard off to drink it!” I chuckled. “I don’t want to shatter it for the kids!”

As we trundled along a half-dirt road, full of potholes, Judy waited over the other side with a fresh supply of lollies and a grin from ear to ear.  

We were still practically newlyweds, having met in a fish and chip shop in South Grafton four years earlier. I was an interstate truck driver, and by the time I’d come in for my second hamburger with the lot, she was my girl.  

On our first date I took her out dancing at the local club, to see Col Joye and his band.  

We married in January 1973 and now our baby son, Jason, was about to experience his first Christmas. With the flush of motherhood and with the whole street buzzing over Santa’s visit, Judy couldn’t wipe the grin from her face.  

“Are we doing it again next year?” she asked hopefully, when it was all over and the din died down.

“If you think you’re up to it!” I laughed.  

The following year, 1975, we put the word out early, and parents and grandparents realised it would be a hoot if Santa could actually deliver packages to their kids in person.

A few of them dropped presents round to our place, with nametags, and Judy worked like a machine, organising the lollies and loading everything up into the back of the ute in order.  

This time, the Moores Pocket Road crowd knew what to expect, and they were waiting!

By the time we finished that run, the tradition had been born. The following year, 1976, Judy found herself a red and white outfit and rode beside me, as Mrs Claus, where she remained for the next 29 years.

Each Christmas Eve held it’s own wonderful moments. One year a boy approached me timidly. “Santa Claus, can you come and see my sister, cos she can’t walk.”  

I followed him to where his mother was nursing a small girl with cerebral palsy. I gave the child a cuddle and she started to smile. The mother burst into tears. “That’s the first time I’ve ever seen her smile!” she cried.

Judy was moved. “We need to do something for that family,” she declared, so the next day we went down to their house with a Christmas hamper and teddy bears for the kids. It was belting down rain and when Santa picked up the little girl, she was so excited she piddled everywhere.  

In the late 1970s we found out about a family Santa had forgotten. The dad had just died of a heart attack and the mother was left with six children. They were destitute.  

Judy raided our own pantry then ran to the shops and bought groceries.

When I turned up at their house on Christmas morning dressed as Santa Claus, with a hamper in my arms, I was greeted by a little boy eating a stale crust of bread. On top of the hamper was a bottle of cordial. His eyes just fixed on that bottle. My own eyes filled up with tears.

“How good are you woman?” I said to Judy later. “We’ve got ample here for Christmas, and you’ve gone and given it all away. You’re amazing.”

It set Judy thinking. “What about all the other children whose parents can’t afford presents?” she asked. “I don’t want any child to miss out. And it would be nice if we could give something to some of the older people, too, who are lonely…”

So we started making puddings, over a hundred of them each year. I was the cook, and Judy gift-wrapped them to deliver to the elderly folk along the route. And we started buying up on little presents for any kids Santa might have forgotten.

By 1985, costs had blown out of all proportion. I started doing some professional Santa-Claus appearances, using the money to invest in sweets and presents. Some of the mums and dads donated money too.  

It helped being a local bloke. “Mum! Mum! Santa knows my name!” were words we heard all the time, and when I didn’t know their names Judy always seemed to, whispering them discreetly.

One year, we delivered a squirming blue cattle dog puppy. “Here you go, Stevie!” The five year old was overjoyed but there was no pleasing everyone.  

One rainy Christmas Eve, Santa had to shelter in a barn until the storm passed.  

A nine year old boy was sheltering too, eyeing me up.  

“Have you been a good boy?” I asked him.

“Yes,” muttered the boy, looking cheesed-off.

“And what would you like Santa to bring you for Christmas?”

He exploded with fury. “Listen, I just told you that up the road at the shops, you silly old fart!”

Judy laughed till it hurt when I told her.

She was a natural mother, instinctively understanding every child’s needs.  

During the year, between Christmases, we worked to raise funds for the local hospital’s Sunshine Ward, for the sick kids. “Whatever they need, we’ll get for them,” Judy promised, and soon we were arranging watermelon drives and annual bus safaris all over Queensland, with profits going to the hospital.

As a Justice of the Peace I did volunteer work for Juvenile Aid and occasionally brought home youngsters who were in serious trouble with the law, rather than see them go into protective custody. My wife never complained or turned them away. “They all deserve a chance,” Judy said. “Kids are kids.”

In the middle of all this we had our own children too - Jason, now 32, Belinda, 28, Daniel, 22 and Rebecca, 21.

In February last year, while chopping down a tree together, it fell and collected Judy on the head.  

“Ow!” she cried.

“You’d better get that checked out at the hospital,” I urged. While she was there the doctors ordered some tests, but the news was nothing like we expected.

“We’ve found a cancerous tumour on the bottom of your lung,” they said.  

It was a complete shock but Mrs Claus was determined to fight her cancer. She underwent chemo and by July the lung tumour had shrivelled. “We’ve beaten it, Bob!”

But Judy began to lose her memory. On Melbourne Cup day her doctor organised another scan… and this time they found a tumour on the brain and the news was chilling.  

My wife had six weeks to live.  

Judy put her arms around me and we both began to cry. “I would have liked another twenty years with the billy-lids,” she whispered. Then she sighed. “Oh well. We’ll see.”  

We did an emotional trip down to Cobram in Victoria to visit our son Jason, his wife Fiona and our grandchildren Kyle, 6, Makaylah, 4 and Liam, 2. For two weeks we had family photos taken, went on a paddle steamer up the Murray River and talked and laughed about old times.

“Come on Jude, we have to go home,” I finally urged her. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done, taking her away from those children.

We both cried all the way back, but Judy was as tough as nails. On the morning of December 18, she ordered me to put on my good clothes and go to my sister’s house. “Don’t come back until I ring up!” she made me promise.

I returned to a house filled with people, and a marriage celebrant. “I love you Bob,” smiled my frail wife. “I just want to renew our wedding vows.” When that beautiful service was over, she had another announcement.

“I don’t care if you have to lift me up onto that ute. I’m doing one last Christmas as Mrs Claus.”

So early on Christmas Eve morning I sent out a letter to the locals. This year marks the 31st year Santa has made his visits down Moores Pocket on Christmas Eve and sadly, will be the last.  

The letter explained Judy’s cancer, and how little time she had left.

It’s time for Santy to hang up the Big Red Coat, shave off the beard and set the reindeers free…

Then, like every year before, we loaded up the ute with three hundred presents for the kids, iceblocks, puddings and lollies.  

We helped Judy up into the back of the ute and - as Santa and Mrs Claus - we set off together again for one final run down Moores Pocket Road.

We could never have anticipated what lay ahead.

People lined the streets, weeping. Every now and then a group would start to clap, and they’d all join in, giving Judy a standing ovation until the ute passed. Jude was crying too, in bits and pieces, trying to hold herself together. Half way along the run I looked down and couldn’t believe my eyes. The back of the ute was absolutely loaded with flowers, cards and chocolates, all for my wife.

A very elderly woman approached us. “I’m a great-grandmother. You delivered to me when I was a little girl,” she smiled.

“Do you need to rest?” I whispered to Judy, but she was absolutely determined.

“No, I’m staying here.”

Next morning, we woke up to a full house. All our kids were there for Christmas, along with the grandkids, our billy-lids. We gave them all their presents and hunted them out of the loungeroom.  

Judy put her arms around me. “I love you Bob. All my wishes have been granted.”

By December 27 she was in hospital and the nurses eventually had to tell staff to stop bringing up flowers. “The room’s like a florist, we can’t move in there!” they laughed.  

Every second card from adults and children alike was addressed to “Mrs Claus”, thanking her for making Christmas magical.  

She hung on through the New Year and on January 6, we spent our 33rd wedding anniversary together in the hospital.

By now the cancer had spread to her liver and pancreas and the next day she slipped into a coma. Our son Daniel turned up at her bedside. “You’re going to be a nana again,” he whispered, and she squeezed my hand with a look of contentment spreading over her face.  

We knew the end was near. At dawn, the kids and I all formed a circle, held hands, and recited the Lord’s Prayer. As the Ipswich Town Hall clock struck 6, she closed her eyes for the final time.

At her funeral, mayor Paul Pisasale bestowed the flag of Ipswich on her coffin and read the eulogy with tears in his eyes, saying we’d lost our city angel. “As Mrs Claus, the children learnt the true meaning of giving and the true meaning of Christmas,” he said.

A couple of weeks later, on Australia Day, I was kneeling beside Judy’s grave with my daughter Belinda when she pulled a letter from her purse. “Mum asked me to write this for you dad. It’s something special.”

Judy had nominated me for the Australia Day Citizen of the Year. “This is a special occasion,” came her words from beyond the grave. “And I wish I could have been here to celebrate and share this with you… so my darling, put your best clothes on, stand before our city. Win or lose, hold your head up high. Say – “I, Bob Green, am a good man with a heart of gold…”

In a daze I turned up to the ceremony, and heard my name announced as the winner. As I stood there struggling for words, I felt a tap on my shoulder.  

There was Judy, my wife, standing behind me with a grin from ear to ear and the proudest look on her face. She was happy and at peace.

I gave a heartfelt address and I walked out of there a very proud man, later learning that they had visited her in hospital with the news I’d won the award. She’d saved that one final, special gift till last.

I went home and pulled out a poem that our friend and neighbour Neville had written after her passing.

And as you take that last sleigh ride in the sky
We bid you Judy farewell, so long, goodbye