James Ray Bryan

James Ray Bryan, Christmas icon By KAY POWELL
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Published on: 04/27/06

For 23 years, Santa Claus sent Ray Bryan to Phipps Plaza to collect children's Christmas wish lists.

Mr. Bryan would welcome 18,000 children a season onto his lap. He was Santa to more than one generation in some families, and others would travel from Texas and New Jersey every year just to visit him at the mall, said Steve Lane of Madison, who arranged his Phipps appearances.

The retired East Point Fire Department captain helped Santa Claus at Perimeter Mall for five years before moving his sleigh to Phipps 23 years ago.

He was believed to be the highest paid Santa in the metro area and one of the first to have his own belly like a bowl full of jelly and snowy hair and beard, according to articles in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

"To me, he was an icon in Atlanta," Mr. Lane said. "There's no other one like him."

James Ray Bryan, 77, of Covington died of a heart attack Wednesday at Rockdale Medical Center. The funeral is 11 a.m. Saturday at Wheeler Funeral Home.

It was Mr. Bryan's wife, Cindy Bryan, who promoted him as Santa Claus after his 1975 retirement. "He was a big man with a big stomach," said his son Dan Bryan of Atlanta. "Actually, he used to look more like Ernest Hemingway than Santa."

Mr. Bryan wore custom Santa outfits, about a dozen a season, had his hair and moustache professionally groomed daily for 20 years by Frances Blomberg of Covington, then rode to Phipps Plaza in a white limousine to greet the children.

When he became Santa, magic happened. "It was his character," Mr. Lane said. "When he walked out on the set every day, he had the persona of Santa Claus. I've seen a lot of magic with a lot of kids, a lot of families."

In a 1991 article rating mall Christmas displays, the AJC said: "The best thing about Phipps' display is Santa himself."

If a child's Christmas list read like the Sears catalog, Mr. Bryan would say, with a touch of humor, "Now, wait a minute. Rudolph can't pull all this much in the sleigh. Why don't you just tell me the three or four things you really want most of all."

He did that to help parents, so children wouldn't be disappointed when they didn't get everything on their list, he told the late AJC columnist Lewis Grizzard. Mr. Bryan's intentions were good, but still one father wanted to fight him over it, a rare occurrence.

In the off-season, Mr. Bryan was "a good country soul," Mr. Lane said. He dressed in blue jeans, red suspenders and plaid short-sleeve shirts. Even though his long white hair was bothersome in the summer, he never cut his hair nor his beard, his son said.

As Mr. Bryan was about in the community, children reacted to the resemblance between Santa Claus and him. They were spellbound, and he would always talk with them, his son said. "He very much enjoyed it, making kids happy."

Mr. Bryan ran a heating and air conditioning business and indulged his love of history. He was a Civil War buff and once owned the 1822 Henderson Mill on the Alcovy River. He bought the three-story mill constructed of rosemary pine in 1976, spent about $200,000 restoring it and lived in it through 1995.

When he moved out of the mill, which Gen. Sherman tried unsuccessfully to burn down in 1864, he took one of the doors riddled with bullet holes from Union Army weapons and pocked with deep cuts, likely the work of ax-wielding infantrymen, according to a 1996 AJC article. He transformed the door into a dining room table.

It was a historic table crafted by one of history's most fabled characters.

Survivors include another son, Jerry Bryan of Dahlonega; two daughters, Beth Knight of Walhalla, S.C., and Donna Oliver of Lithonia; a brother, W.S. "Bill" Bryan of Rome; nine grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.