SALT LAKE CITY – After the year we’ve had, even Santa Claus needed a little head start on Christmas Eve.
So he visited LDS Hospital in Salt Lake City on Thursday night instead of Friday morning.
He wanted to ensure that health workers received an early gift.
Santa also visited Primary Children’s Hospital and the University of Utah Hospital on Thursday.
DoorDash and Uber Eats have nothing about Santa Claus. At Christmas, he got a head start by delivering food to health workers in hospitals. He knows that not everyone gets Christmas Eve off and he wanted to thank you. @ KSL5TV at 10 o ‘clock. #ksltv#MerryChristmasEvepic.twitter.com/wXVSDZGCmS
– Alex Cabrero (@KSL_AlexCabrero) December 25, 2020
He delivered pizzas and snack boxes to health workers who do not have a day off.
Emergencies don’t pay attention to calendars.
“This was the best way I could figure out how to give people who have to work a little fun,” he said.
It’s a Christmas Eve tradition that David Lamb has been doing for years.
Lamb dresses up as Santa Claus and delivers food to health workers. “You can spread and encourage goodwill,” he said. “And I love Christmas.”
Lamb said he remembers how hard his mother-in-law worked for twenty years at Dixie Regional Medical Center in southern Utah.
“We were going to spend Christmas in St. George and wait for her to open the presents and she’d come home exhausted because it was work,” Lamb said. So my wife and I decided this was what we were going to do. We wanted to bring them some fun and thank them for their work. ‘
Normally, lamb bakes and brings baked goods to hospitals.
But this year, thanks to that big chunk of coal known as COVID-19, he instead brought pizza and snack boxes.
He knows that nurses and doctors have had a difficult year.
“Our health workers have been under a lot of stress and if we can add just a little bit to their lives tonight, a little bit of appreciation for what they are doing, that makes it good for me,” he said.
Plus, you never know when a ride down a chimney will require a visit to the hospital.
Maybe Santa will grease them up just in case. But even when he’s not coming for an emergency, he knows that medical workers are looking after other patients.
And they won’t be hungry for it.
“They really appreciate it,” said Lamb. “They appreciate people remembering them.”
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Alex Cabrero