Inside a Dearborn public school this morning, Santa Claus waved to the eager kids awaiting to receive presents from him.
“Keefak,” he said to the mostly Muslim children, using an Arabic word that means, “How are you?”
One boy replied in Arabic: “Is Santa Arab?”
At this school, Santa Claus is.
For 24 years, he has been played at Salina Elementary School by Jim Stokes, a Dearborn attorney whose grandmother was a Lebanese Catholic immigrant.
“When I see the kids, I think of her,” said Stokes, decked out in a Santa suit and beard.