SANTA CLAUS SPECIAL — Patty Loveless hopes any relatives who saw her tossing toys and candy off the back of the Santa Train Saturday at her hometown railroad crossing in Elkhorn City, Ky., will understand if she didn’t stay and talk, according to the Kingsport (Tenn.) Times-News.
She was pretty busy at the time – and for most of the day for that matter.
Loveless may have been the most recognized of Santa’s helpers, but she sure wasn’t the only one. She joined dozens of others on the 110-mile route from Shelby, Ky., to Kingsport that has been a pre-Thanksgiving tradition 60 times over.
For Loveless, it was her second run but if she has any say in the matter it won’t be her last.
“I’d do it again next year. I would. I love it so much,” she said during a break from all the gift-giving stops.
Even though Loveless doesn’t have a lot of Santa Train memories, she remembers mother and siblings talking about sitting on her grandmother’s porch counting the train cars as the train passed. And she has one lingering memory as a 7-year-old of playing in her backyard and looking across the river at a passing train and seeing Santa on the back.
“I recall seeing Santa on the caboose waving and I thought I was seeing things. I was so scared to tell my family about it because I was always really good at making up stories,” she said, with a laugh.
For Loveless, Santa is as real as ever.
“I believe in Santa … You’ve gotta believe in Santa. Santa’s in all of us. Even if we can’t spend a lot of time with him, he’s in all of us, and that’s what’s so great about it,” she said, adding that seeing the joy on kids faces when the man in red comes into view gives her a good feeling.
“I think it has more to do with tradition,” she said about the crowds that turn out for the train.
The season that brings Santa around is special to Loveless, who just released her first Christmas record, “Bluegrass and White Snow.”
The arrangements were inspired by her Mountain Soul CD, and reach back to the music that first inspired her.
“I was born here, I was raised here right along with that music. My mom and dad always had a love for the mountain-type music. It was within me,” she said.
“Christmas is so special. It always was around our house. It wasn’t about what you got. It was just the fact of seeing mother decorate. As my mother would put it, it’s the celebration of Jesus’ birthday. She loves anything to do with a child and mother.”
The first two songs on the Christmas release, Away in a Manger and Silent Night are favorites of her mother, Loveless said.
“It gave me an opportunity to go back and revisit the times when I was a child. It’s the kind of Christmases I recall having,” she said. “I miss them. I really do. I wish I could have them back,” she said.
There’s also a tribute to the Santa Claus Special called “Santa Train”, inspired by her 1999 trip on the train.
“Of course, Santa Train speaks for itself. That’s what we’re on. The experience of getting to ride on it in 1999 was so overwhelming for me and my husband, who’s my producer,” she said.
Nowadays, Christmases are spent at her home in Georgia, with her husband’s, Emory Gordy Jr.’s, family. Thanksgiving, however, is when Loveless returns to her own family to celebrate the holidays.