Folsom Santa Sleigh History

Well where do I begin?

How about "A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away..." Oh silly me, that's the wrong story!

Maybe a quick introduction might help. I'm Wunorse Openslae and I've been working with Santa Claus for such a long time I can't even recall when it all began, but it was a long time ago. After all, I am in my middle years now (which is about 600 years old). Many of you may know what I do for Santa, but for those of you that don't, I designed Santa's magic sleigh and I am responsible for all the sleigh maintenance as well as looking after all his reindeer. As you can imagine that's quite a big task!

The Big Ask - 1986

Over the years I have created many sleighs for Santa and back in the 1980's I was asked by the Folsom Police Officers Association (FPOA) if they could borrow Santa's sleigh to help with some community efforts. I had a quick conversation with the big man himself, and he said of course they could borrow his sleigh. In fact he thought it was a great idea! There were two conditions though. The first was that the FPOA would only be able to have a retired model so that the actual Christmas Eve sleigh was available for Santa's use. Don't get me wrong, this is still one of Santa's sleigh's, it's just an older model. And second, because we keep all the magic that makes it fly for Christmas Eve, the FPOA would have to provide another way of moving it around the city.

Well it didn't take long before they came up with the perfect idea! How about they tow it behind a police car! Santa loved the idea and so the FPOA got to work making it happen. Of course I helped. After all I do have a few hundred years of experience. And I know magic too!

The first sleigh was really cool. Like really cool. The FPOA had the sleigh put on a single-axle trailer behind a state of the art beast of a patrol car - a Ford Crown Victoria. Obviously we couldn't have the real reindeer standing on top of a police car, so the FPOA created some single dimension wooden reindeer on a metal frame that ran across the roof of the car and up and away into the night sky with Rudolph at the helm.

The sleigh was a huge success and it very quickly became an annual fixture every December. The officers of the FPOA spending their free time helping improve the sleigh, looking after the reindeer and then touring the city in their off-hours along with Folsom's firefighters, sirens wailing to hail the arrival of Santa so children of all ages can see him in all his glory.

The Year of the Truck - 1987

It was 1987 when the sleigh got some more upgrades and a brand new tow vehicle. The Crown Victoria was replaced with a Chevy pickup, and did those reindeer fly! The FPOA also teamed up with the Twin Lakes Food Bank to help gather donations of food and toys for families in need.

Throughout the next few years the city got completely behind the event and it quickly became one of the most loved and appreciated events of the year. With the goal of collecting toys and food for those in need within the local community, Santa's sleigh cruising through Folsom was an instant hit!

Technological Breakthrough - 1990's

The 1990's was when the big technology boom happened and up at the North Pole I had added loads of capability to Santa's Christmas Eve sleigh. A young lad by the name of Daren Prociw started with the Folsom Police Department as an Explorer Cadet around that time and worked on the sleigh to help get it ready. His name is a big part of the story, but we'll come back to Daren in a moment. Up at the North Pole on Santa's Christmas Eve sleigh we had new tracking devices for weather, advanced telemetry systems for helping us stay on course around the world and even some entertainment systems to keep Santa and his reindeer in the best of ho ho ho.

Well not to be outdone, the FPOA and I once again had a chat about what we should do for the sleigh Santa had leant them, and we all agreed it was also time for a sleigh upgrade! And the FPOA did not hold back! Remember that young Explorer Cadet? Well Daren was now a reserve officer with the police department. Officer Prociw to be exact. He was asked to help old Wunorse Openslae here with the work of the upgrade to a four seat model, new rails, a new light bar and a siren too. It was hard work, but the end result was a marvel. With the additional help of Chief Speigel, the sleigh was reborn again and even had more life-like reindeer. Officer Prociw oversaw the program for 20 years until 2015, making changes along the way.

A Community Effort - 2019

Fast forward to 2019 and with the sleigh in its fourth decade, the FPOA went with another upgrade. The City of Folsom has grown exponentially during this time and it continued to bring joy to countless children and children at heart. So the upgrade. This one was a BIG upgrade, so much so that it took a whole community to make it happen. And the story is well documented too. If you go back 600 years, we just wrote things down on paper, and even to this day I do all my designs on a notepad with sketches. Of course I have a few apprentices that help with the computer aided design, but there's nothing like a pencil to paper. Sure there are photographs of the sleigh in Folsom from the 1980's and 1990's, but since everyone now has digital cameras that can capture everything, we have this great history of the sleigh being upgraded.

The easiest way to explain this is to follow the photographic trail! So let's go...

Things started out with a sketch that I put together for the FPOA. Remember that pad I was telling you about? Well my magic pencil went to work and the sketch transformed from a drawing on paper in September to a full blown sleigh by December. It was hard work, but the FPOA and the community rallied! This was surely inspired by the hard work and effort that we all put in back at the North Pole. It's a team effort!

First the FPOA had to find a new trailer for the sleigh and then they dismantled the old sleigh to salvage what parts they could for the upgrade. After the trailer was in Santa's Folsom Workshop, the sketch was outlined on cardboard, so design changes could be made before anything was built.

The base platform was built on the 1990's sleigh underbody and two bench seats were added. The back seat would be higher than the front so that Santa's passengers could see as well as Santa when flying around (or vice-versa for when Santa decides to command from the back seat).

Next up the sides were cut from plywood to match the shape designed and laid out on the cardboard previously. This is the first time that the sleigh started to take shape and things were already looking magical! Sugarplum Mary, the assistant to Mrs. Claus, was on hand to help choose the color for the sleigh too. This was a critical step because the paint needs Santa's magic ingredients added to it to help it withstand all the elements when flying around the world.

With the sides in place, the front dashboard frame and the curved nose frame could be added. The shape of the nose is critical as it helps when traveling at super high speeds from towns, to cities and between countries!

The facing for the nose was put into place and 'gently' massaged to match the frame. Storage boxes under the benches were also added for additional support as well as providing the storage capability.

On a cold November 2 morning at 8:00 am, the sanded and completed frame was taking for a community painting event at Folsom Rotary. Now, the nice thing about Folsom Rotary is that they provided good old Wunorse Openslae with a hot breakfast and coffee - and was it welcome on that morning! It had been a long trip down from the North Pole to supervise. So as not to disturb Santa, Mrs. Claus or the other elves, I had to leave the North Pole quietly and missed out on breakfast!

Back at Santa's Folsom workshop the sleigh was looking great. But there was still so much more to do and it was already November 23! But Santa and his elves have never missed Christmas, and the FPOA wasn't going to let it be missed either!

The seats were made to custom fit the sleigh. Rudolph wanted us to point out that no reindeer were harmed in the making of the seats! It was important that the seats are soft and comfortable for the long night ride. They also needed to be durable, after all we know who sits on them!

Santa can't know where he is going without instrumentation and he needs some entertainment while he travels, so in went the dashboard components, the audio system and some lights because, well he's Santa and that's what he wants!

A sleigh isn't a sleigh without lights and boy are there lights! Plenty of them to be installed, so some help from the Folsom Fire Department with the wiring was very much appreciated. The only downside is that the job was so well done, Santa is thinking he might want Folsom Fire Department to come up to the North Pole and do some work for him there!

And after all that effort and hard work, Santa authorized me, Wunorse Openslae, to officially sanction and approve the FPOA sleigh as one of his own sleigh's for the exclusive use by the FPOA in their community. I now keep in touch regularly with the FPOA and Folsom CAPS members who proudly maintain the sleigh and continually improve it from year to year, so that the joy of Santa traveling the streets of Folsom continue to serve it's legacy proud.

And of course none of this would have been possible without the generous contributions of the following community members that year: