It all began on Labour weekend in 1962. Ian and his parents, William and Jesse, were staying at their holiday house in Tikao Bay, a short drive north of Wainui in Akaroa Harbour, which Ian and his father had built seven years earlier.
He met a girl on the beach and the attraction was immediate and mutual. By New Year’s, they were a couple. That girl later became his wife and the mother of his two children. Ian and Ally were married for 51 years before she died in 2017 from a pulmonary embolism.
Ian can’t remember exactly what he said to her that first day – only that “he was very complimentary”.
Ian, now 84, taught her to swim and water ski, while she tried to teach him to dance, “neither with much success”.
“I met this bird on the beach and my life changed,” he said.
The following November, while staying with Ally’s family, he was handed a brown parcel from his mother-in-law, Dulcie Comfort. Inside was a red and white coat Dulcie had hand-stitched for him – without his knowledge.
"She said, ‘there we go, you’re Santa for family Christmas’,” Ian said.
“I was a 16-stone prop, being Father Christmas was nothing I’d ever thought of.”
“She had me right under her little finger,” Ian said.
The scale of the Comfort family Christmases was a shock to Ian, who had grown up as an only child. Dulcie was one of 12 children and Ally’s father, Ernie, was one of 11.
“There were aunts and uncles and cousins and whatnot coming out the woodwork in all directions,” he said.
“But, you know, I had a ball. I thoroughly enjoyed myself.”
The next year he was roped in again, this time to play Santa for the family’s church – and the gig grew from there.
Since then, he has impersonated Father Christmas all over the country at work parties, playcentres, schools, and family photoshoots, never charging a cent.
“I don’t believe I should be getting paid for having so much fun.
“I just enjoy seeing the joy on people’s faces.”
Ian still wears the same suit Dulcie made in 1963 and insists it has never been washed.
“I’m terrified if I wash it, the thing will fall apart,” he said.
He dreams of reaching 70 years as Saint Nick. Mentally he feels up to it, but physically he’s less confident.
He is blind in one eye and partially blind in the other, and three years ago he fell down his outdoor steps and broke 10 ribs.
When he eventually hangs up his duties, he won’t be retiring the coat – he plans to pass it on to one of his great-grand nephews.
Ian has played Santa at Akaroa’s Christmas in the Park since 1998, and used to wander around New World on Moorhouse Ave giving out lollies and offering hugs.
“There was even businessmen in suits – that was probably the nearest they came to empathy and compassion in their business life,” he joked.
He has 14 “duties” lined up in the weeks before Christmas — six of them in Rotorua, where he will be appearing this week.
Ian worked as a BP troubleshooter for 31 years, mostly based at the company’s Wellington head office, but his job required him to travel wherever issues arose. He said he and his family lived in nine houses in seven years.
Ian decided to take early retirement in 1994, aged 52.
“I was losing count of the number of mates that I had that were falling to cancer,” he said.
“I thought, well, if we’re gonna have any sort of retirement, we need to start it soon.”
“She said, ‘how long is it from Paraparaumu to Wellington’, I said about an hour. Then she said, ‘how long is it from Christchurch to Tikao’, I said, well, about an hour.”
“She said, why the hell are we moving to Paraparaumu.”
So they changed course and moved back to where it all began — into the house Ian and his father had built. He still lives there today.
Over the years Ian has had many memorable experiences while serving as Santa, but one standout happened at a specialist school in Wellington in 1979.
After handing out presents, a child told Ian there was still Jesse who was waiting outside in a hospital bed after her fourth operation for spina bifida.
“I went out and there was this little kid with the biggest smile I've ever seen. I go to give her the present and she held my hand and she held my hand and she held my hand,” he said.
“I planned on being there for about an hour and it was three-and-a-half hours before she fell asleep and I could quietly disengage.”
He still makes memories, with or without the coat.
Just last week at New World in Halswell, he felt a bump on his leg. It was a little girl.
“She said, are you going to grow your beard down below your knees? I said no.”
“Why not?” she asked.
“Because if it gets too long, it gets in the way of saying ‘ho, ho, ho’,” he replied, to the girl’s amazement.
He recalled 85-year-old Wainui farmer Vern Shadbolt sitting on his lap and saying he wanted “a good crop of ewes that produced twins”.
Ally joined him for many duties as Mrs Claus, reading out the names of children when his eyesight failed.
“She loved being Mrs. Santa, absolutely thrived on it,” he said.
Even after Ally’s death, Ian was never tempted to hang up the red and white coat.
“Certainly Ally wouldn't have wanted me to stop being Santa, so I've just kept doing it,” he said.
For aspiring Santas, Ian advises simply being themselves and fully believing in the character while wearing the coat and beard.
Ian grew up in Christchurch, raised solely by his mother until he was four, while his father served as a lieutenant during World War 2, mostly fighting in the Pacific.
His first memories are of his father teaching him how to box.
“He started off with one hand behind his back, up until I got him right on the nose, from then on it was both hands,” he said.
His grandmother Elizabeth, a Presbyterian, insisted he attend Sunday School at St Paul’s when he was six.
He recalled an older boy who acted as “commander”, hitting him over the head whenever he made a mistake.
“He probably hit me five or six times and I just hit him once, but I was the one banned from Sunday school,” he said.
“I thought if that’s their bloody attitude, they can stick it up their jumper and I’ve thought so ever since.”
He went on to become the heavyweight boxing champion at Christchurch Boys’ High.
“Compare what Odin reportedly did, to what Santa does, which is basically make people happy all around the world,” he said.
Ian played for the Boys’ High first XV and Old Boys’ as a front rower, alongside players like John Graham and Tony Steele, both future All Blacks.
But Ian’s job at BP stopped him committing to representative rugby.
After high school he completed his national service with the New Zealand Scottish Regiment.
He recalled being in a bar, buying drinks for his kilted Scots companions, when two patrons approached and asked how things were “under the skirt”.
“I put an arm around each of them and banged their heads together, picked up the glasses and returned to the Scots,” he said.
“These two then started to fight one another and of course, immediately that started the whole place off, everyone was suddenly having a punch up.”
Except for the Scots, who sat up the back, observing the chaos. They were the only ones not barred from the establishment.
Ian said his father’s self-defence lessons stayed with him.
“I’ve always been a big ugly bugger, I’ve always hated bullies and I’ve helped people when I can,” he said.
Even at 84, he keeps busy building model boats, refurbishing dinghies and carving wood. He also attends a weekly book club in Akaroa.
“Even though I can’t read the books anymore, I still go along and give them cheek,” he said.
