www.roanoke.com

Thomas Crickenberger’s wife, Wanda, gets at least two custom-whittled gifts from him each year: a bird (usually a rare sort that has dined in one of their backyard birdfeeders) and a Santa Claus.

Since he was eight years old, he’s carried a pocketknife and whittled here and there. He remembers growing up in Emporia, Virginia, when it was alright for little boys to bring their knives to school and play a game called “Mumble-peg” on the playground. They’d open up the small and the large blade both, into a “U” shape, and flip the knives into the dirt. Points were awarded based on how the blades landed.

When he was involved in Scouting in the 1970s, he’d carve kerchief rings and birds and a few other things here and there. He and wife Wanda had collected Santa Clauses since his first Christmas gift to her when they were dating at Ferrum in 1956, a squeaky toddler’s toy Santa. In 1987, she asked him “so if you can carve birds, why can’t you carve a Santa.”

And so he began carving them out – hundreds, thousands maybe, he’s never kept count. For a time, he sold them at a shop in Fincastle, but he couldn’t keep up with the demand. Most are made of Bass wood from a sawmill in Dayton, Virginia.

Crickenberger, in his mid-70s now only does them for family and on special order, to keep it fun and because he just likes to know where they are going.

Each Santa, even the identical ones he creates for his family each year, are a little different (this year’s are of a Santa, hat off, leaning over a manger with baby Jesus.) His daughter sells a few of his Santa pins at her booth in Tinkerings in downtown Salem.

For more information or to inquire about a special order, email them at tjc_wbc@comcast.net

-Miranda Beck