FREE TO ALL! A beloved holiday tradition returns! In 2017, Jaycee Santa on the Common is back!

For decades, the Foxboro Jaycees held a “Santa on the Common” event each December. Due to competition from malls and others we stopped around 2010 or so, and brought this tradition back in 2017 and 2018.

We now combine this event with Foxboro Recreation’s “Light up the town” where the Jaycees bring Santa and Mrs. Claus to the event for lighting up the tree and greeting the kids.

History of the project:

Our very popular Community Development project, “Santa on the Common,” was retired after 2009 and after many requests and are own love for the project we started it up again in 2017 and 2018.

Our Santa was always Fred Badger, who told us years ago he’d lost count of the number of years he’d played the Jolly Elf in the red coat. Fred’s son Ryan served as his elf for many years as well. During the many, many years this project ran, it was always a huge event. One year, we even brought a pony! Pauline Brown painted a beautiful backdrop for the images. Kathy Brady could always be counted on to ensure the bandstand was repaired and ready. And finally, we got the good idea to erect a tent for Santa to shield Mr. and Mrs. Claus from the biting wind, and allow a small portable heater – believe us, the Common is cold in December! Paul O’Sullivan stepped in one year when Fred was ill, and since the late 2000’s  Ed Groh has filled the role of Kris Kringle at Jaycee events. And Mrs. Claus is always played by the loving Laureen House. A dear friend, she’s told us many times it is very simply her very favorite Jaycee thing to do, and Laureen has even made house calls on Christmas Eve as Mrs. Claus. She is the PERFECT Mrs. Claus and her love of children and the Jaycees is well known.

About the images…   Years ago for Santa on the Common, the Foxboro Jaycees would take a Polaroid picture to give to parents.     In this modern age, many parents are understandably concerned about placing their children’s pictures on the World Wide Web.   So each Santa (and Easter Bunny) event, any digital pictures WE take, we upload the pictures with the children to a secure directory and give the parents a password to download and save the pictures and then Jaycees remove them from our site after 30 days – that way, we can securely deliver images to parents.    In this social media age, the children you see in the Santa and Easter Bunny images on the Jaycees site these days are all Jaycee children or their parents have allowed us to keep the image on the site.  (Or they are adults).   So although we take hundreds of pictures each event that is why so few are saved here in the archives in recent years.   Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all!