From Scrooge to Santa
As he has for the past 10 years, Marvin Jendreas cruised the streets of Prospect Heights on his motorbike Tuesday, spreading the proverbial holiday cheer. But he admits he didn't always enjoy the season.
"He used to be a Scrooge," says his wife, Marcia Jendreas, bluntly.
Jendreas, who served on the USS Kitty Hawk during the Vietnam War, says he despised the holiday shopping stress and gross credit card bills associated with Christmas.
"Why bother with the waste?" he would complain.
So what persuaded the 63-year-old to go out each Christmas season dressed as Santa, riding his Yamaha Virago 1100 and carrying a bag of presents to give to children? Credit an after-Christmas sale.
Ten years ago Marcia and their daughter, Michelle, went shopping on Dec. 26. They brought Dad home a Santa suit that was discounted 50 percent as part of a post-holiday sale.
"It was a joke," Marcia Jendreas said.
But the simple sight of that bright red suit somehow helped grow this Grinch's heart three sizes that day.
Now, every year, Jendreas checks out the weather forecasts around the holiday to find the one day when snow won't be falling. Usually there's a dry day within five days of Christmas, he says.
He dons the suit, grabs the bag of trinkets that Marcia has found at bargain stores and takes off on the Yamaha, beard flying in the wind. He scouts the roads for teenagers in cars, or finds them hanging out near Randhurst mall in Mount Prospect.
"I get big responses with people honking their horns," he said.
He spends about three hours handing out presents.
"It just makes me smile," he said.
The commercialization of Christmas continues to bug him, so Marcia, who married Marvin in 1969, buys about four dozen trinkets costing no more than $10. This year kids got bendable reindeer or mini Frosty the Snowmen.
And, when it comes to his own presents, Jendreas refuses to wrap any of his own gifts in anything but the humble newspaper comics section.
Santasuits.com sells costumes costing as much as $700 for the so-called super-deluxe edition. But that doesn't tempt Jendreas. He keeps his suit ready for the season, despite 10 years of wear and tear.
"I told him this year his beard looked a little ragged," Marcia Jendreas joked.