SCOTT CITY MAN ENJOYS HIS UNUSUAL HOLIDAY OCCUPATION: `RENT-A-SANTA'

SCOTT CITY - Terry Johnston doesn't mind when kids ask him "Where are your reindeer?"

In fact, he doesn't mind when they ask him for Barbie dolls, bicycles or Nintendos.

Johnston, 30, is known to many children only as Santa Claus. For more than six years, the Scott City man has run a business he calls Rent-A-Santa.

"I always get cookies, and I get a lot of letters," said Johnston, who lives in Scott City with his wife and two children.

"But I really don't feel like I'm Santa, I just like to see the kids smile."

Dressed as old Saint Nick himself, Johnston visits parties, day care centers, stores and family gatherings, and listens to children's Christmas wishes.

He charges about $25, and stays as long as he's needed. It's not a lucrative business, he said, adding that some years he barely breaks even after paying for advertising.

But being Santa isn't something you do for the money, he said.

"I just really enjoy it," he said. "Sometimes the parents leave presents out on the front lawn and I get to walk in with them.

"Last year I got carrots to feed my reindeer, but I like carrots so I ate them myself."

But being a Santa isn't all fun and games, he said. There are always the children who cry or are too shy to talk to Santa. And some ask for gifts even Santa can't give.

"I once had a little girl come and ask me for her little brother back," Johnston said. "That was tough. I told her he was with Jesus right now and that he was probably very happy."

Johnston said he starts getting requests to play Santa in early December. The week before Christmas usually has him running from one party to the next, he said, right up to Christmas Eve.

Kids have some unusual requests for Christmas presents, he said. A surprising number of them ask for computers, he said. And the young kids are the most engaging, he said, because they usually still believe in Santa Claus.

The shy kids are a challenge. "They don't talk at all in the beginning. I just keep asking them what they want for Christmas and in the end, if they talk to me, that makes me real happy."

Johnston said his own children, Darla, 3, and Matthew, 7, can tell the difference between their father and other Santas. The first time his daughter saw him in his Santa suit, he said, "she cried and cried until she realized it was daddy."

The one thing Johnston said he dreads is when parents ask him to scold their kids. But most parents just ask him to urge their kids to behave.

"When Santa tells them he knows they've been bad, some of them get embarrassed. But I just tell them they need to behave better than they have been," he said.

Office parties bring with them a whole different set of problems, he said.

"They can get pretty wild," he said. "One time a lady was just about ready to tear off my beard."