The Eastman Christmas Party

"Santa Sounds a lot like J.D. Wininger"

Tennessee Eastman Christmas Card from 1972 -

Nativity Scene at Church Circle by Raymond Williams

Seven-year-old Bruce Haney was climbing down from Santa’s lap at the 1955 Eastman Christmas Party, the social event of the year for grade schoolers in the fifties, when Santa began calling to his father, “Hey, Usif! Usif Haney! What do you want for Christmas?”

Little Bruce was astounded. “I remember thinking, ‘Wow, Santa Claus knows my dad.’ And I also remember thinking, ‘Santa Claus sure sounds a lot like J.D. Wininger.’”

Little boys and little girls all over Kingsport grew up with that same secret:  Santa sounds a lot like J.D. Wininger. From the Eastman Christmas party to the Palmer Center holiday celebration to the Bethel Presbyterian Church Christmas party to Christmas Eve at Holston Valley Community Hospital, Santa had the same resonant voice as the man who coached the Civitan Midget League baseball team, who led Boy Scout Troop 48 and refereed high school basketball games.

For generations of Kingsport kids, those who grew up between 1944 and 1988, Santa sounded a lot like J.D. Wininger.

J.D. Wininger was a strapping young man of 30 with a full head of black hair when he first played the role of Santa at the 1944 Tennessee Eastman Recreation Club Christmas Party, bouncing a thousand or so kids on his knee that holiday. By the time he retired from the Eastman Party 44 years later, he had grown into the job with white hair and a bowlful-of-jelly belly of his own. And he had bounced tens of thousands of Kingsport kids on his knee.

He was Santa because he got into the Santa suit early. A Santa sighting was a rare occurrence in the forties and fifties. There was the annual Santa Parade the day after Thanksgiving, when Santa would ride a sleigh down Broad Street, then descend from his float and amble into W.B. Greene’s for a two-hour session in the department store’s downstairs Toyland. But none of the other stores had Santa’s - or at least they didn’t advertise the fact in the paper. Santa wasn’t a necessity for the local department stores. They closed at 5:30. They only stayed open on Parade Friday till 8 p.m. to accommodate parade goers. The rest of the holiday season, it was business as usual: 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., except Wednesday when they closed at noon.

When a kid needed to tell Santa what he wanted for Christmas, he wrote him a letter. Or if he were a lucky Eastman kid, he sat on his knee at the annual company Christmas party. And the man behind the beard was J.D. Wininger.

 “He loved playing Santa,” recalls his daughter Glenda Wininger Denny, who now lives in Sumter, South Carolina.

“And we used to love it when he put on the suit,” adds her sister Peggy Peterson, now a resident of Sewanee, Tenn. “I especially used to love it when mom would drive him to a party. Glenda and I would ride in the back seat and people would look in the car and point, ‘Look there’s Santa.’ I’d think, ‘Aren’t we cool, we’re in the car with Santa.’”

The 1955 Eastman party, when Bruce Haney first connected Santa and J.D. Wininger, drew a crowd of 6,044, according to the TEC News, which didn’t offer a breakdown of kids to adults. Assuming every kid had a couple of parents and a younger sibling, that would mean some 3,022 sat on Santa’s knee that day. That’s a lot of wear and tear on Santa’s knee.

“He was always really tired after the party,” says Peggy.

“But happy,” notes Glenda, who has decided that this column will be the place to reveal one of Santa’s secrets. “Want to know how he knew every child’s name and what the child wanted before he ever got up on Santa’s knee? He had an earpiece in his ear and the person that was the elf would talk to the child so that when he got to Santa, Dad knew his name and what he wanted. It was high tech before high tech.”

Not to be outdone, Peggy is ready to spill the beans - jelly beans, of course - on another Santa secret. “At some parties, Santa would bring Rudolph, which was my brother Ty and one of his friends. Ty would be either the front end or the rear depending on what kind of mood he was in. Santa would ask Rudolph how old the child was. And he would pat Rudolph’s rear so Ty would know how many times to stamp his hoof.”

On Christmas Eve, Wininger would visit every room in the hospital, every patient, to bring them some holiday cheer. “It took several hours to do this,” recalls Glenda. “In later years my husband Charlie would be his reindeer. Charlie said Dad tried to explain what it was like being inside the suit and seeing the joy on people’s faces.”

The Santa who sounded like J.D. Wininger so inspired his daughter’s husband that year that he later bought a Santa suit of his own. “Now Charlie visits preschools and elderly friends and he understands the magic inside the suit.”

Others have filled Kingsport’s Santa suit over the years. Joe Higgins was the first Santa Train Santa, succeeded by John Dudney, then Frank Brogden and now Don Royston.

Constable John D. Parker was Santa for kids in underprivileged homes in Kingsport in the fifties and sixties. 

Even J.D. Wininger couldn’t be Santa to all kids. “He and another man would alternate, an hour each, at the Eastman party,” recalls Glenda.

Glenda says it was exciting being Santa’s daughter. “We always asked what was the most frequently asked for toy and he could tell us.”

Glenda added, “I’ve always believed in Santa Claus because I lived with him forever. When people talk about you shouldn’t lie about Santa, that was never ever a thought to me. I thought my dad was Santa. I still believe it.”

Bruce Haney in 1955

J.D. Wininger, Civitan Midget League coach - back row, left