Thanksgiving through Christmas is the busy season for Danny Bland of Bland’s Sewer and Water in Alton, Ill. He’s not busy maintaining pipes, however, he’s busy maintaining hearts — including his own — by playing Santa Claus.

“This will be my 15th year,” Bland says. “I’ve been playing Santa since my beard turned white. I wanted to do something for the kids and I enjoy this so much. No amount of money in the world can pay for how I feel when I get that feeling in my heart.”

The 62-year-old with the 6-inch white beard refuses to take any pay for playing Santa; he says commercial jobs “take away from Santa Claus.” But he keeps busy eight to nine hours a day in December, from 6 a.m. appearances at daycare centers to community Santa breakfasts, appearances at elementary schools and Christmas parties for the elderly at nursing homes.

It all started when the Exchange Club of Alton, a service club Bland belongs to, needed someone to pinch hit for the jolly one at its annual Christmas party for local children.

“My buddy did it one year, but he didn’t have a very good beard, so that’s how I got started,” he says. “Kids always pull on my beard and say, ‘you are the real Santa.’ ”

The belly like a bowl full of jelly is also real, Bland says, but he has to wear a white wig under his red hat because he’s a little short on real hair.

CHANGING TIMES

Bland’s business, like his Santa activities, started small and grew through the years.

“I’ve been in business 43 years,” Bland says. “I started it when I was 19 years old. I used to do a lot of pumping, but we sold the pump truck about a year ago.”

Alton has a population of about 30,000. It is across the Mississippi River from St. Louis, but Bland’s 50-mile service territory is entirely in Illinois.

“St. Louis is close,” Bland says. “But all different rules. And I never wanted to be the biggest, I just wanted to be the best.”

Bland started the business after a back injury ended his college football career. He started with a trencher, then bought a backhoe and eventually got into liquid waste pumping. After four decades of pumping septic tanks, Bland sold his vacuum truck and today the company concentrates on service work, hooking up houses and some small commercial buildings to sewer lines and doing line repair and replacement work. The company works on about 10 houses a week, Bland says.

“Once all the houses get hooked up to water and sewer, there’s not a lot of tanks left to pump,” Bland says. “On the rare occasion we need someone to pump a tank — it’s usually to fill it up with dirt because it’s not going to be used anymore — we have a contractor we use.”

SANTA’S HELPERS

Fortunately for Bland, his stepson Bill Ayres is in the process of taking over the business. His grandson, apprentice plumber Struther Griffith, and nephews Bill and Jason Bland also work for the company and all pitch in so he can devote the necessary time to playing Santa.

Bland’s wife, Bonnie, sometimes accompanies him on his holiday-cheer missions as Mrs. Claus.

“I like going to the nursing homes the most,” Bland says. “Those people still believe in Santa Claus when they are 80 years old or more. It’s like they go back to their childhoods when they see me. They get to be kids again.”

He says since Alton is a close-knit community, he has known many of the nursing home residents his entire life and can tell stories about them, which makes for good fun if they don’t recognize him in his Santa costume.

“They are really amazed at some of the things Santa knows about them,” he says with a chuckle.

Bland says he’ll hand out presents at a nursing home Christmas party and then visit the residents who are unable to leave their rooms to attend.

“I insist on going to see the unresponsive ones too,” he says. “I talk like Santa to them and they’ll remember their childhoods and almost every time I get a big smile. The staff can’t believe it.”

Probably the most emotional visit Bland has had as Santa was at the home of an 8-year-old girl diagnosed with terminal cancer.

“When I left, I said, ‘See you next year,’ and she turned to me and said, ‘Santa, I’m not going to be here next year,’” Bland says. “If that doesn’t tear at your heart, nothing will.”

OVERCOMING SANTA-PHOBIA

One might assume a guy who grew up to play Santa with so much conviction has fond childhood memories of the big fat man in the red suit. Not so, Bland says.

“I hated him when I was a child,” he says. “I had three older sisters and five older brothers and they pulled tricks on me that made me scared of Santa.”

Those memories, he says, are the key to his ability to get children over their fears today.

“I understand their fears. So I can get any child on my lap because I don’t try to scare them,” he says. “If a child is crying, I don’t force it. I let them sit on the floor and watch. When they see the other kids aren’t getting hurt and are getting treats, they come around.”

Bland’s activities to help children are not limited to the holidays. He owns a 320-acre farm 60 miles north of Alton where he raises elk and deer.

Several times throughout the year he welcomes groups of disadvantaged children to the farm through the Alton Boys and Girls Club and the Exchange Club of Alton, giving them the opportunity to fish and hike. Sharing the country scenery and the animals with kids who might otherwise not have the opportunity to get out of the city is just another way the longtime businessman maintains his heart during his after-hours time.