Portraying Santa brings Jeff Benton pleasure at Christmastime

Jeff Benton takes the words from “Santa Claus is coming to Town” seriously. He knows when you’ve been bad or good. And each December he proves it.

Benton has been portraying Santa Claus for decades. But he does it with a twist.

When he trades in his gray Horry County Sheriff’s Department uniform for the red suit with white trim and black belt, he also relies on his decades of listening to create the magic of the jolly old elf.

“I’ve been blessed,” he said. “I’ve had the fortune to help a lot of folks, maybe not always monetarily, but with timing and with love with the Santa Project.”

He’s an on-air fixture on Gator 107.9, a personality on Bob 104.9 and each year as Santa at between 10 and 20 events each season, including the Murrells Inlet-Garden City tree lighting, nursing homes and hospitals, at private events such as a visit to Lee’s Inlet Apothecary and Gifts or the family party sponsored by the Murrells Inlet-Garden City Fire District.

Each time he puts on Santa’s suit, he becomes Santa, adding a few pounds of heft to his frame, a few pounds of white hair and a beard to his close-cropped brown hair and smooth chin.

He doesn’t have to add the twinkle to his blue eyes or the caring to his personality That comes naturally.

While he has a steady list of clients, each visit is different, each event is new.

“You know, sometimes people need you to hug their neck and tell them it’s OK,” he said. “Even Santa Claus doesn’t have the answers for everybody’s problems, but when you hug someone and tell them you love them and you’ll see what you can do, you give people hope.”

Benton, a sergeant in the sheriff’s department, didn’t plan to be Santa. Before he joined the Horry Sheriff Department, he got a job through Character Occasions. “They needed a Santa, so I became Santa,” he said. “I was also Batman, and Barney, and even the Easter Bunny.”

But nothing stuck like Santa, nothing gave him the pleasure that the Christmas season brings him.

“Back when Inlet Square Mall was full, they had this display of singing and talking bears at Center Court.,” he said. “They had this little house, and I would sit in it and watch people come past, and I would talk to them. They had a camera and a microphone. And I had a microphone, so I could talk back.

“And because I grew up in the community and live here, I knew so many of them. So I was able to talk to people. I knew about their families, I knew about their kids and they never knew it was me.,” he recalled, leaning back in his office at the Horry County courthouse.

“I love to talk,” he said with a laugh.

But more importantly, he loves to listen. And he remembers. “I’ve often seen the same people year to year. I know them,” he said.

They know him too, the dreams and wishes they share with Santa.

“We live in a world where more people listen to respond than listen to care. And so Santa listens to care, and that’s the part of it that I love, because it helps me, it helps me too.”

He’s learned on the job. But a lot of what he does comes naturally. It’s not unusual for Benton to get off Santa’s chair or bench and sit with a child to allay the youngster’s fear.

“Especially with someone visiting Santa for the first time, it can be scary,” he said. “To a child, Santa can be a huge person with a bunch of hair looking down on them. So I get down to their level. And they usually come around, and hug my neck.”

He strives to be as authentic as possible, so as not to disabuse a child’s image of Santa.

“To a child, Santa’s the guy. He wants to talk to Santa, to tell Santa everything,” Benton said.

A child may tell Santa something he may not want to hear. “Children tell Santa everything,” he said. “I can’t judge. I don’t get involved in parenting. And when I hear a negative, I try to turn it into a positive.”

He has also learned not to promise.”Something may happen at the last minute and that bike may not make it into Santa’s sleigh,” he said.

Benton stays in character from the moment he puts on the suit. He even sprays the suit with a cookie dough scent. “Kids know. They smell that, and I tell them that Mrs. Claus gave me milk and cookies before I left the North Pole. And I never let them see me get in my car. I call the reindeer and tell the kids to ‘look over there.’ They don’t need to stop believing.”

As for himself, Benton never stops believing either. A year ago, he lost the bottom floor of his house to the flooding. He no sooner got back on his feet, then he lost the same area plus the roof to Hurricane Matthew. His co-workers, friends and the community came together to help him.

The same community helped when his son, Dakotah, a St. James High School senior heading to the Marine Corps in March, was born without a soft spot in his head. He and his wife, Wendy, got an outpouring of love and financial help.

The Bentons also have a daughter, Jessica, a biology major at Coastal Carolina.

But Jeff Benton also has a community of love gained over the years. One thing that means a lot to him is a drawing that Cain Lee, now a student at St. James High School, made for him more than a decade ago. It’s a picture of Santa Claus with the wording “You’re my gift.”

“I kept that. One day, I’m going to give it back to him,” Benton said.

It is what Santa would do.

This story was originally published December 19, 2016 at 5:00 AM with the headline "Portraying Santa brings Jeff Benton pleasure at Christmastime."