Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus. He sits next to me in the church choir.

Let me describe him for you: He's about five feet, seven inches tall. He's a jovial fellow with an ample belly to roll with a hearty laugh that can be heard all over the church. He has salt-and-pepper hair and beard that miraculously turn white at the beginning of the Christmas season. He sings beautifully.

He also reads music, which is helpful to the guy sitting next to him.

About the middle of November, Santa disappears from the choir. He goes off to a place called Bakersfield, Calif., where he and Mrs. Claus will stay until the day after Christmas. Then they'll return to northeast Georgia, where they live when they're not taking children's requests.

Santa sits inside a Bakersfield shopping mall 11 hours every day and listens to children who have visions of sugar plums, or something, dancing in their heads.

Some of them have visions of just being together for Christmas, all of their family together. One pretty, little girl wanted her grandmother to get better for Christmas.

A boy told Santa, "I'd like a new house for Christmas. ... We had a fire."

And Santa said, "Well, Santa will pray that your new house will be ready real soon."

Santa does pray, you know, Virginia. He often breathes a prayer from his heart and sometimes prays out loud with the youngster on his knee. He also says things like, "You'll celebrate more than just what's under the Christmas tree, right?" And, "I'm just a small part of the picture. The bigger story is about God's Gift to us." And, "Santa may seem to be the big guy, but he can only do so much. God can perform miracles."

You don't know this, Virginia, but for 32 years Santa was an associate pastor and music minister in New York and Pennsylvania. He survived double heart valve replacement in 1992, when doctors gave him a 2 percent chance of making it.

Now he's retired, but not altogether retired, as you can see.

People at church know Santa as Bill Sandstrom. That's William David Sandstrom, born in Jamestown, N.Y., migrated south in 2002, married to Mrs. Claus, also known as Peggy; a son and a daughter and three grandchildren, 6, 3 and 2.

Santa answered his new calling, as he terms it, six years ago. "It's a calling," he says, "to share the Christmas spirit, to give people hope, to point them to God as the only source of love, joy, peace, hope and good will."

Santa loves telling kids that he needs a savior, too.

Santa is really tired after seeing maybe 300 children a day. But he loves his work. He really does.

You can tell by the way he laughs that Santa laugh and says to you, Virginia, and to everyone else who celebrates the birth of Christ, "Merry Christmas to you all. And God bless you."