Ballam Furniture Gallery owner Jim Ballam checks the authenticity of Santa's (a.k.a. City of Chilliwack traffic warden Mike Densky's) beard. Santa will be in front of the store this weekend collecting food for the Salvation Army Food Bank.
Photograph by: Cornelia Naylor , TIMES
The annual Santa Parade might have been cancelled and Jingle Bell Lane rained out, but that doesn't mean Santa has abandoned downtown Chilliwack this year.
This weekend the jolly old elf will be outside Ballam Furniture Gallery, ready to entertain shoppers on his knee and collect donation for the Salvation Army Food Bank.
" That parade's been going on for years and years and years," store owner Jim Ballam said of the cancelled Santa Parade, "We just felt that it would be nice to do something downtown."
Donning Santa's gay apparel at the downtown store will be nearly retired City of Chilliwack traffic warden Mike Densky.
"I used to walk the beat downtown, so I thought I'd throw something back into the community and do some-thing for the people downtown," he said. "With all the tickets I've written over the years, I figure this way we can all make it work for everybody."
Ballam will be cordoning off the parking spots in front of its store to make donating to the food bank even more convenient.
"People can drive by and just hand their canned goods out the window to me," Den-sky said, "and I'll drop them in the bin, so it's like a drive thru."
It won't be Densky's first time in a Santa suit since he used to play the part for City of Chilliwack employees' children during the holiday season.
And, for anyone tempted to pull it, his beard is real, though Densky admits to "colouring it up a bit" for the occasion.
? Look for Santa in front of Ballam Furniture Friday from 9: 30 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Saturday from 9: 30 a.m. to 5 p.m.
