For 16 years, Charles Brack made the more than 800-mile trip from his Georgia home to Lancaster County to spend 12-hour days as Santa Claus at Park City Center.
“After years of him not being home for Christmas, I got tired of it,” Brack’s wife, Jeannie, said of his trips, which took him away from home from Nov. 1 to Dec. 24.
On Nov. 2, Brack slipped on the stairs in his home and hit his head on the garage floor. His wife called 911, but given her background in the nursing profession, she suspected the worst.
“By the time I got to him, he was not breathing,” she said. “He had no heartbeat, had not even wiggled.
“Chuck, you’re dead,” she recalled saying to her husband of 59 years. She then looked skyward and said, “God, you can take him now.”
Charles Brack was 82.
Those who interacted with Brack in Georgia remember him as a man devoted to his hometown, where he most recently served as mayor, among other roles.
Those who knew him in Lancaster County remember Brack as Santa, bringing joy to thousands, many of them children.
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‘Become Santa’
Jeff Brack had been accustomed to his dad being away for the holidays because the elder Brack’s professional career was often spent on the road as a computer salesman.
An Air Force veteran, Charles Brack became Kriss Kringle late in life, an opportunity that first came about when a friend at a photography studio in Lawrenceville, Georgia, needed someone to be Father Christmas in the early 2000s.
“I made him a Santa suit,” Jeannie Brack said. “It was a long, blue velvet robe.”
“Afterward, the photographer said, ‘Chuck, you need to become Santa Claus for good,’” Jeff Brack said.
It prompted Charles Brack to join a local chapter in Georgia for those interested in being Santa for the holiday season, through which he was first assigned a department store in Cleveland, Ohio. It’s only by coincidence that the facility was originally the Higbee’s department store in which parts of the 1983 flick “A Christmas Story” was filmed.
“I absolutely loved it,” Brack said in a 2023 story published on charlestoncitypaper.com, a weekly independent newspaper in Charleston, South Carolina. “I had such a good time. When you put on the suit, you think, ‘I have all this time,’ and it seems like forever. But it zips by so quick. I would go back tomorrow if I could.”
During his service as Santa in Cleveland over the holiday season, Brack would sometimes be contracted to work as Santa for holiday parties thrown by owners of sports franchises in the city.
“It’s funny. Growing up he was never really the Christmas person,” Jeff Brack said. “My mom was. But looking back he probably was more of a Christmas person than I thought because he loved doing it.”
Charles Brack was first assigned Park City Center in 2005, according to Rachel Gallagher, senior general manager of Park City Center.
“Once we worked with (Brack) we knew we wanted him to come back,” Gallagher said.
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‘A tough gig’
Charles Brack was a Georgia native who served as Santa Claus at Park City Center in Lancaster city from 2005 to 2021. Francesca McAndrews, seen in this undated photo with Brack, was his elf at Park City from 2009 to 2012. Brack died Nov. 2, 2024, at age 82.
“It’s a learning experience,” Brack said of being Santa in the 2023 charlestoncitypaper.com story. “You just meet the kids where they are. I learned an awful lot about people being Santa …. (Some kids) cry, they scream, and the screaming pictures are gorgeous. They’re beautiful because it’s so unique, it’s different.”
While in Lancaster County to be Santa each holiday season, Brack stayed at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott Lancaster in Manheim Township, where general manager Laura Koprowicz said the hotel let him stay free of charge, and even went a step further to rent Brack a La-Z-Boy recliner for his hotel room so he could rest his ailing back.
Each year, Jeannie Brack traveled by plane from Georgia to visit on Thanksgiving.
“It’s a tough gig,” Charles Brack told charlestoncitypaper.com in 2023. “I would show up for a 12-hour day every day except Thanksgiving. In my 20 years, I missed about five days for sickness, and every time I would come back, families would come and retake the pictures because the kids would say, ‘That wasn’t the real Santa yesterday.’ ”
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Brack kept ice packs underneath his Santa coat to keep cool, and drank tonic water to stave off leg cramps. He took two to three breaks a day, resting in a room tucked away in the mall set up for him by staff, inside which he sometimes napped.
“He was very engaging with every person he met and interacted with,” Gallagher said. “He was very good about remembering children’s names from year to year. He loved our pet nights - we have one or two nights where people can bring pets in and have a photo taken with Santa. He also did a great job of interacting with infants, sometimes pretending to be asleep with a baby on his lap holding a storybook.”
“One of the stories that sticks out in my mind was a little boy who was on the cusp of not believing in Santa,” Jeff Brack said. “Somehow my dad got info on the boy, knew the boy’s name, talked to him about the bicycle he got the year before, talked to the little boy about his dog. The kid’s jaw was on the floor. He couldn’t believe it.”
“He just loved putting smiles on people’s faces,” Francesca McAndrews said.
McAndrews worked as an elf alongside Brack at Park City Center from 2009 to 2012. She later landed a job with United Disability Services and got paired with Chuckie Magee, a Lancaster boy with special needs, a connection that led to Magee having lunch with Santa when Brack was on break.
“They would always bring (Magee) to see me and dress him like Woody from Toy Story,” Brack recalled in the 2023 story by charlestoncitypaper.com. “They called me one year, told me Woody was in the children’s hospital with bone cancer.”
Cancer kept Magee from visiting Santa. So Santa came to him.
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‘Ho, ho, ho!’
Charles Brack was a Georgia native who served as Santa Claus at Park City Center in Lancaster city from 2005 to 2021. In November 2014, Brack surprised Chuckie Magee, a Lancaster man who was battling cancer at Penn State Health Children's Hospital in Dauphin County. Magee died six months later at age 23. Brack died Nov. 2, 2024, at age 82.
On a November night in 2014, after Brack worked a full day as Old Saint Nick, he drove back to the Fairfield Inn, where McAndrews picked up Brack and escorted him to Penn State Health Children’s Hospital in Dauphin County to surprise Magee.
“We had to pretty much sneak (Brack) into the hospital,” recalled Magee’s mother, Beverly Horn Magee. “It was after-hours, so visitors weren’t allowed and doors were closed.”
Brack stayed quiet until he entered Chuckie Magee’s room.
“Ho, ho, ho!” Brack bellowed out.
“Chuckie’s face just lit up,” Horn Magee recalled.
Chuckie Magee gave Santa a handwritten letter, penned with help from his sister, that said: “Dear Santa, I love you! I hope you are having a Merry Christmas. I would like DVDs, clothes and money. Thank you. Love, Chuckie.”
It was the last Christmas wish list for Magee, who died six months later. Horn Magee still has that letter, which Brack left behind after reading it.
“Maybe (Brack) left it behind with purpose,” Horn Magee said.
Brack last worked at Park City Center during the 2021 holiday season. But he occasionally put his Santa suit back on in Allentown, Georgia, sometimes visiting children who lived nearby or participating in a holiday parade at a local recreational vehicle park.
Brack was living in Buford, Georgia, in 2005 when his first son, Steve, an Allentown City Council member and volunteer firefighter, was killed in a car crash on his way to a fire call. It’s what prompted Charles and Jeannie Brack to move back to Allentown, where Charles filled his son’s shoes in becoming a volunteer firefighter and taking on the vacant seat on City Council. Charles Brack later became mayor in 2022.
“It’s devastating,” Allentown City Council member Eric Nobles said of Brack’s death. “If you ever met Charles you’d never forget him. … He had the gift of gab. He could talk with anyone.”
Allentown is a small enclave about an hour's drive west of Santa Claus, Georgia, with a population of 195, according to the 2020 census. But it sits in the middle of four counties, each of them assisted by the Allentown Fire Department, which explains why there were about a dozen fire engines from those surrounding areas at Charles Brack’s funeral.
“The funeral was at a small church,” Jeannie Brack said. “It was full and so was the yard out front. I had never seen such a big thing.”
Brack made a similar impact on thousands of people in Lancaster County through his role as Santa.
“(Brack) was a real Santa,” Horn Magee said. “That’s the only way to describe it. … He lived his life as Santa. It’s the best way to describe him.”
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