Do you know the story of the firefighters who saved Santa’s sleigh?
It’s been told and retold in Long Beach fire stations for years, but it’s not well known outside the department. You’re probably familiar, however, with the sleigh.
For more than three decades, it’s carried the man in the big red suit — perched atop a Long Beach fire engine — during the Belmont Shore and Daisy Lane Christmas parades.
On it, written in gold paint, are the names of five men who built the sleigh in 1991. It was a minor Christmas miracle that took place at Fire Station 13 in West Long Beach just before the sleigh’s first appearance.
The story goes like this:
When their station got the call, the original request was for the crew to touch up the paint job on “a plywood box” with a sleigh design painted on it. It was supposed to be a quick dress-up job on the box scheduled to appear in the Belmont Shore parade about 48 hours later.
Firefighter Jim Meiers recalls seeing the box and saying, “We ain’t doing that.” Santa deserved better.
A midday trip to Lowe’s later, he and the rest of the firefighters on duty that night set to work.
Around midnight, they had all the pieces cut out and “stapled together” in a rough outline of a sleigh, Meiers said.
He stayed over on the next shift to add the signature red paint, then asked the afternoon crew to put on another coat.
The next morning, they painted the accent trim, added Christmas lights and made the seats.
“Then,” Meiers recalls, they ran into a more uncommon problem: “We needed some reindeer.”
On a whim, he asked a nearby pool company if they had any inflatable reindeer in stock. Shockingly, they did. But the real trouble came when they tried to keep them inflated for the duration of the parade, which — as any attendee knows — can stretch for hours on Second Street.
One of the firefighters hooked up a system of paramedic nasal tubing to each of the reindeer, along with an air bottle for Santa’s passenger to squeeze whenever the reindeer started to droop.
“It got to be kind of cute on the parade because you could see those things going down and then all of a sudden they blow back up,” Meiers said.
Since surviving that first parade, the sleigh has made it 35 years and needed only minor paint touch-ups.
After Jim retired in 2002, his son Paul Meiers took over his exact shift at Fire Station 13.
Paul also assumed Jim’s position at the wheel, driving the engine with Santa atop during the yearly parade routes and annual holiday toy distribution.
The sleigh used to be a fixture at the old City Hall during the month of December, but hasn’t made the transition to the new one, Paul said. Instead, it stays on a spare truck at Fire Station 13.
This year, for the first time, Jim and Paul rode together in the firetruck at the Belmont Shore parade.
Following in his dad’s footsteps, Paul plans to retire soon, but he said he’s going to miss getting to drive Santa around.
“It’s a great feeling, just watching the kids’ excitement,” he explained.
Even adults who see the sleigh perched on top of the firetruck light up at the sight.
“Everybody honks at us the entire way” to the parade, Paul said.
The sleigh is just a piece of their legacy.
Both Meiers have won firefighter of the year, the first time that’s ever happened in Long Beach. Their careers spanned a combined 51 years for the city.
Paul said he’s had his career picked out since he was 7 years old, the same year his dad Jim became a Long Beach firefighter after a short career working at Douglas Aircraft Company.
“I’m real proud of Paul,” Jim said. “He way surpassed me on his knowledge and what he’s done. He went one step beyond me so that made me proud.”
Paul’s hoping to retire early next year, meaning Fire Station 13 — and Santa’s sleigh — will be without a Meiers for the first time since the early ’90s. But don’t worry, it’ll be in good hands and scheduled to return next Christmas.