COVID can’t stop Country Santa, making sure no Upstate child goes without Christmas

He’s never worn a Santa suit — wouldn’t even consider it — but Buddy Cox is as much a Santa to thousands of kids in the Upstate as the real deal.

Known as Country Santa, Cox began delivering toys to kids in need in 1978. Last year, some 3,000 kids received a visit from Country Santa’s elves, who now form a virtual army of helpers.

But this year, with the coronavirus pandemic taking firm hold on the area, Cox is cutting his deliveries back to Pickens County only, which will be about half the normal number.

But Country Santa will make sure Christmas comes no matter what for the kids he’s able to serve. The deliveries will happen as usual on Christmas Eve. Country Santa won’t be driving his sleigh — a red Jeep pickup — but will be overseeing his army of elves as they carry on his three-decade legacy.

Cox said he almost didn’t plan a Christmas delivery at all this year. He didn’t want the people who help him or the people who get deliveries to get sick.

But earlier this year, he read a daily devotion that said don’t be afraid to do good works. So he installed two air purifiers in the Santa building, bought a thermometer and set a limit of seven people who could be working at any one time.

Usually by this time of year, 25 people pack into the building Cox built beside his house in Pumpkintown.

They shop the shelves. Like in an actual toy store. The shelves overflow with dolls and games and Legos. If you can imagine a toy, it’s likely there, arranged with the meticulous precision of an engineer, which Cox is by education and profession.

Country Santa machine

In the past, people could drop off toys for Country Santa at 65 locations around the Upstate, but Cox cut it to 24 this year. He said he didn’t want the dad who has for years picked up the toys to be exposed to the virus any more than necessary. And they didn’t need as many toys.

The helpers get a sheet with the age and gender of a child and go shopping from Country Santa’s storehouse, putting each family’s toys in a huge black plastic bag. This is all overseen by Sandy Hamilton, also known as the Toy Nazi, who’s been helping out since 2006.

She’ll look in the packed bags, sometimes calling the packer “Scrooge” and sending them back for more. Or to another, she might say they were too generous, realizing that if one child gets more gifts some might not get enough.

Enough is always on her mind.

She has heard her dad’s story. When he was 10, he got a Hershey bar for Christmas. He’s 84 now. She remembers.

“I try to make it nice,” she said.

A Cross Hill childhood

Cox was 10 when his dad walked out on the family. That was in the early 1960s, and Cross Hill, located in the southeastern part of Laurens County, was about the same size it is today, 550 or so people. They didn’t have much, but his mom, an accountant, always made sure he and his two sisters had presents under the tree..

He was raised Presbyterian, which to him means you go through things in life to prepare you for greater things. He remembers Roxanne Cox as a frugal mother, but what he didn’t know for the longest time was that she often bought shoes for kids because they couldn’t go to school unless they had some.

In that way that sometimes fate takes your hand, shoes launched Country Santa.

Cox and his wife, Nelle, wanted a more peaceful place to live when they left Greenville and bought some land in Pumpkintown. They were living in a mobile home while building their retreat when an Ambler Elementary School teacher told Cox about a first grader named Mary Ann, who needed new shoes. Would he be willing to help?

Of course, he said. After Christmas, the teacher told Cox some kids were making fun of Mary Ann because she brought a tattered doll to school. Cox bought her the biggest doll he could find.

The teacher told Cox that Mary Ann had returned to school a new child and often brought that doll. She actually smiled. Someone cared.

Country Santa grows

The next year Cox took on more children, then more the next. The need is great in Pickens County, where almost 18% of residents live below the poverty line. The national average is 13%. And this is a county where income is inflated due to Clemson University salaries.

In those first years, Cox handled all the gift deliveries himself, riding the back roads of Pickens County in his red Jeep pickup on Christmas Eve.

Nelle went one year. They rolled up into a yard of a man who worked in a sawmill. The house was leaning over, the screen porch was lopsided, the door screen busted out.

Seven kids streamed out the door. The normal Country Santa rules are to give the presents to the parents, but the kids were there, already excited when Cox handed over the bag.

As they pulled out, one of the little girls was standing in the doorway, waving. Nelle Cox teared up and decided then and there her role was to open their home to their helpers and stay out of the delivery operation.

Hamilton describes her as “a saint.”

She calls her Miz Nelle. Nelle Cox provides lunches for helpers, lets them come in and out like they live there. Snacks and drinks are always available.

“We don’t have strangers here,” Buddy Cox said. “People say it’s like coming home for Christmas.”

Hamilton said all her friends know if they need her, she’ll be at the Santa House for the month of December.

Through the years, there have been so many stories, delighted kids to be sure, but also so much need. So much struggle. Cox has been through two generations of kids. Asked to tell about some, he again mentions Mary Ann.

One Christmas Eve, Cox was alone at home; all the deliveries had been sent out. Another successful year had unfolded.

His phone rang. It was Mary Ann, now a teenager. Her mom had remarried, she said, and she wondered if he had her new address. He didn’t plan to go to Mary Ann’s. He had $15 in his pocket.

Everything was closed except the Western wear store, where the owner told him to take what he wanted free of charge.

Cox said he realized it wasn’t what he gave, but that he came. Someone remembered.

Hamilton said in 2008 as the recession was growing and people were losing jobs, the need included kids living in much better circumstances.

Cox always says, “It’s not the situation children are born into; we help them have Christmas.”

After Christmas

Cox doesn’t do the deliveries anymore. He’s 70 now, but that’s not his excuse. He’s just too busy coordinating all the pickups at either his house or, if the weather is bad, a business in town.

He says he acts and feels 30.

Hamilton called him a “hot mess.”

“I don’t even know what to say about him,” she said.

Asked what he does after Christmas, Cox said, “Nothing.”

He admits to being a workaholic — at his business and at his Santa House. If he’s not there, he’s cutting weeds in the ditches and slopes beside his 1,000-foot-long driveway or chopping wood to give away to people in the community through the winter. He has taken wood to a woman in her 80s for 10 years. She lets him know she needs it by pulling back a blue tarp.

“She doesn’t even know my name. I’m the firewood man.”

He’ll break up beaver dams with a hand rake or clear trees from the bottomland beside the Oolenoy River that borders his property.

When he does take a vacation at Garden City or Edisto Beach with his three daughters, their families and his and Nelle’s friends, he’ll be the one up at 5 a.m. setting up the umbrellas and chairs.

His grandkids find it especially hilarious when he says things like, “You’re grinning like a mule eatin’ briars.”

“I grew up country, and I still have it in me,” he said.