The suit's often homemade. He may buy his own toys. And grow his own beard. But sure as Santa he's there, year after year, passing out gifts and listening to wishes.

Ventura County's community Santas are not the throned, cotton-bearded mall Santas flanked with elves but the saints who often cobble together costumes and volunteer their time. They're rarely paid, unless you consider their currency.

"We do get paid: big smiles," said community Santa Darryl Sobelman of Camarillo. "When you put on that Santa suit and that little kid climbs into your lap and says, I love you, Santa,' you can hear that cash register ringing."

Here are some rotund profiles of a few local community Santas:

Jolly old St. Nick Flores

The school bus brakes creaked and the door hissed open.

A line of kindergartners stood in front of Abraham Lincoln School in Simi Valley waiting, craning their necks. Who could it be?

Dressed in a crimson, fur-trimmed suit, Nick Flores, 74, stepped out of the bus, holding a sack of toys such as Barbie cars, robot warriors, stuffed animals and nutcrackers.

There were a few gasps, but most of the kids from the three kindergarten classes seemed stunned into silence. Santa Claus! At their school!

"He gave me a Spider-Man car," said Alfonso Amezquita, 5.

Michelle Garcia, 5, got a stuffed blue dog from Santa. She hugged it tightly.

"Now you won't be afraid at night," Amy Jimenez, 5, assured her.

Flores looks forward to his annual ritual all year long. When school breaks for the holidays, Flores visits a different Simi Valley kindergarten class each year armed with toys he's been purchasing all year. He uses money from his fixed retirement income.

"Every month maybe I buy four or five," he said. "After Christmas, I go to the sales and I get a few for the next year."

This year, Flores retired from his 15-year job as a bus driver for the Simi Valley Unified School District. He has no plans to retire from his volunteer Santa gig, which he's had ever since he began driving the Simi Valley kids.

"I think I enjoy it more than the kids do," Flores said. "The expression in their eyes. "

Flores decided to start playing Santa 15 years ago, after watching a friend of his son play Santa at a local drugstore.

"I said, I've always wanted to be a Santa Claus,' and he took off the suit and gave it to me," Flores said.

Years of hugs on the suit and tugs on the beard eventually required Flores to upgrade.

"The beard cost 80 bucks!" he said. "I got a suit for $100."

Because Flores is retired as a school bus driver, a co-worker drove the bus this year, but it was still filled with 130 toys.

Alfonso loves his Spider-Man car, but he hopes Santa makes another stop by his house on Christmas Eve. Fully expecting an answer involving reindeer, a sleigh and a chimney, a reporter asked Alfonso how Santa would get to his house.

"He'll take Ashland Avenue," Alfonso said.

Being Santa ain't for sissies

Listening to the wish lists of River Winn, 6, and Eilish Potts, 7, was pretty standard Santa fare for community Claus Dan Long of Ventura:

"I want an American Girl doll!" said River.

"I want a Hannah Montana video game!" Eilish said.

Ten-year-old Kaylin Jones had a taller order.

"I want to see my dad," she said, as her mother, Dawn Hannon, teared up in the background.

Kaylin's dad is "somewhere in Arizona," Kaylin said, and she hasn't seen him in about six months.

Hannon, who has been divorced for 10 years from Kaylin's dad, explained that a legal situation is keeping Kaylin from seeing him; Hannon preferred not to go into the details.

Kaylin got the chance to see Long as Santa during a Dec. 14 party at the Girls Club at the Assistance League of Ventura County.

Long told Kaylin that he would do the best he could to grant her wish but that Santa could only do so much. He then asked if there was anything else she wanted. Yes, she said: a digital camera.

During the 20 years he's been playing Santa, Long has had his heart broken numerous times with adult-sized requests from pint-sized people.

"One little girl said she wants to see her uncle out of jail and off drugs," Long said. "They don't want anything for themselves. They just want this."

Long told the little girl in his most compassionate Santa voice that it was her uncle's responsibility to get off drugs and get out of jail.

The curveballs from kids are difficult, but Long, 50, loves what he does. The husky, blue-eyed painting contractor is sometimes paid to be Santa, but the vast majority, he said, is volunteer work.

His on-the-job training began two decades ago when he was asked to play Santa at two low-income elementary schools in Ventura. Long, who also helps kids by volunteering at the Make-A-Wish Foundation, discovered that the Santa role came easily.

"The bottom line is, you have to love children," he said. "If you love children and life in general, it all comes easily."

Long is single and has no kids of his own, but he loves making kids happy with about 15 to 20 appearances as Santa each season. He created his own Santa suit about 12 years ago, and purchased a secondhand beard from a costume shop in Hollywood.

He hopes to need just one more prop.

"I fill out the suit," he said. "By next year, I hope to need a pillow."

Mazel tov, Santa!

On one Friday night this month, Tim Hansen of Ventura made a quick appearance at the Ventura YMCA as Santa Claus, then hustled over to the Temple Beth Torah to play Hanukkah Hershel.

Hanukkah Hershel was a one-time gig for Hansen, 49, but he's been Santa for about 20 years.

His wife, Cindy, sewed him his first Santa suit 10 years ago, the same year she decided to commit herself fully to the Jewish faith. Tim agreed that the couple's two boys could be raised Jewish, too, even though he was raised Christian. The Santa suit was Cindy's gesture of support for her husband's beliefs.

"I cannot deny my husband, whose favorite holiday in the world is Christmas," she said.

Tim, a computer programmer, had been playing Santa ever since he was in his 30s and working part time at Target. Somebody asked if he would be Santa for a special Christmas sale for the disabled and seniors. There was magic in that ratty Santa suit. Tim was a natural.

Cindy saw no reason not to share Santa's spirit of giving with their boys, Franklin, now 10, and Nathan, now 13.

Nathan and Franklin had no problem integrating the two concepts of Dad and Santa, Tim said.

Cindy's favorite story is set in a hot July seven years ago, when Franklin was 3. Tim had just returned from playing Santa at a "Christmas in July" event in Lancaster and had collapsed onto the couch to cool off.

"He took off his hat and hair, unbuttoned and opened the homemade red suit, leaving his grease-painted beard to cool off," Cindy said.

Nathan and Franklin greeted their dad with the usual cacophony of "Daddy's home!"

Nathan, then 3, talked to Daddy for a moment, then crawled into Tim's lap and Tim became Santa.

"He said, Santa, can I have the roller coaster K'Nex set for Christmas this year?'" Cindy remembered.

Tim had his usual conversation about being good and playing nice with his brother. Then, Franklin crawled down off Santa's lap and asked his dad to come play with him. Daddy was Daddy again.

And yet, every year he became Santa.

Every year, Cindy finds families in need who might benefit from a Christmas Eve visit from the jolly old elf.

"I would leave on Christmas Eve and the boys would see me in the suit," Tim said.

One year, a local helicopter company that often flies over Ventura County pulling a lighted sleigh provided a perfect opportunity for Cindy to point up to the sky and say: "Look! There's Dad!"

When each boy was old enough, he was allowed to come along with Santa/Dad as an elf.

"Now they are both elves," Tim said. "The rule was, you couldn't go with Daddy until you were 8 and you get your elf tunic. Daddy has just a few stops to make on Christmas Eve, not a million."

This year, the boys helped Santa deliver toys to the Ventura YMCA, where Tim teaches swimming and gymnastics. Hansen has been Santa at the YMCA for the past 10 years.

Their concept of Daddy as Santa has evolved as the boys have grown. They now understand the finer points of Santa Claus being more of a concept that certain daddies embrace by donning a beard and a red suit.

Hansen broke the news about Santa to Nathan with the famous 1897 editorial from the editor of the New York Sun, Francis Church, which has since become known as the "Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus" essay.

In it, Church assures an 8-year-old girl that Santa exists just as certainly as wonder and faith and love exist. Church wrote, in part: "The most real things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see."

Hansen liked the sound of that.

"I took him to McDonald's and said, Here, read this,'" Hansen said.

The boys took the news relatively well, with one exception. "They were disappointed he doesn't get to visit the North Pole," Cindy said.

Band of bearded brothers

Gary Sula-Goff, 59, first began playing Santa when his son was in preschool in Ventura.

His son is now 32. Sula-Goff is still Santa. In fact, he attends annual conventions where he meets other dedicated Santas.

This Santa, now a Fillmore resident, belongs to the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas — the AORBS.

The fraternity is all about Santas helping Santas. Each summer they gather for a national convention that includes workshops about how to be the best Santa they can be. The only qualification for membership is that Santa has a real beard, which Sula-Goff does. His 15-month-old granddaughter loves it. "My granddaughter calls me Grampa Fuzzy,'" Sula-Goff said.

When his son's preschool needed a Santa 27 years ago, Sula-Goff agreed, unprepared for the avalanche of Santa love. "I was still in my 20s. I thought: Well, OK, that's great. I'll do that,'" Sula-Goff said. "It was a cheesy suit and a really flimsy beard. I put it on and went out and the kids just swarmed me. It was an incredible love fest. The kids didn't care about the cheesy suit or the flimsy beard."

Sula-Goff, a professional musician, grew his own beard, which was so authentic he became a regular on the Fillmore Christmas train and did some commercials as Santa Claus.

He does get paid now and then, but he does lots of charity work, especially in Fillmore. He frequently visits families in need on Christmas Eve.

"I've gone out for three generations in my neighborhood and the kids all know me as Santa," Sula-Goff said. "I've never been TP'd and I've never been tagged."

A tough crowd

Whether you've been naughty or nice isn't an issue for community Santa Darryl Sobelman of Camarillo.

Each year, Sobelman and four to six elves visit the wards at the Ventura Youth Correctional Facility.

"We don't ask them what they did or how they got there," Sobelman said. "If they want to tell us, we let them, but we don't ask."

Sobelman, 65, is there representing the Kiwanis Club, a charitable service organization that often helps youth groups.

Many of the young wards helped fight the recent Southern California wildfires, and some are members of the Kiwins, the female branch of the Kiwanis, which began as a male organization in the 1920s.

These sorts of steps spell the type of progress Sobelman/Santa likes to see for the young wards, who range in age from 14 to 25. A little old to believe in Santa maybe, but maybe not to old to have a little faith in themselves, Sobelman hopes.

"It's more about trying to celebrate the holiday and trying to bring a little joy into their lives," Sobelman said. "Some of them are pretty hardened and looking at you with a jaundiced eye, but so many of them are happy that we're there."

Yes, Virginia

Jim Olson of Newbury Park doesn't play Santa Claus, but he gets cast as Santa Claus by many an excited child.

Olson, 59, has blue eyes and a white beard and believes he's carrying more weight than he should be on his 5-foot, 11-inch frame.

"Carrying the weight wasn't intentional, but it ended up that way," Olson said. "I've always had a beard. At one point, the beard was red, but now the red is long gone."

If he happens to wear a red shirt, or some other Santa-like garment, kids respond.

Once, Olson was in a sushi bar in Hollywood with his wife, Connie, when the pair observed a little boy pulling his dad's arm, pointing at Jim and repeating: "Dad! Dad! Dad!"

He's been confused with Santa before, so Olson waved to the boy. "So he said: Dad! Santa WAVED at me!'" Olson remembered.

While boarding a plane to Mexico once, a little girl stopped next to Olson and asked, "Santa, did you bring any presents for me?"

The little girl's mother explained that Santa was on vacation and it wasn't Christmastime, but, again, Olson was prepared.

"I said, The elves are working on the presents at the North Pole,'" Olson said. "I said, I remember you! You made me some delicious cookies!'"

That seemed to satisfy the little girl, who promised to be good so she would be remembered at Christmas.

Besides being a celebrity look-alike for the man in the red suit, Olson and his wife — Mrs. Santa Claus, if you will — have hobbies that keep them linked to the Christmas season year-round.

Olson has a collection of wooden Santas from Russia, and wife Connie has collected more than 500 Nativity scenes.

Olson said he has no plans to play Santa, but he keeps getting offers. More than once he's heard, "Call me if you ever need a job!"