Nick Reynolds

Personal Archive · December 2020

The Fire Truck That Brought Santa Back to Broomall

Personal Archive — firsthand accountAuthor's firsthand accountCivic and School-Board ServiceFamily, Faith and Community

Summary written for this site

Official Marple Newtown School District board minutes dated December 7, 2020 corroborate that the Marple Civic Association Santa drive-by took place that month. According to Nick Reynolds's firsthand account, the local fire department was not conducting its usual Santa rounds that year, so he personally paid for and purchased a vintage ladder truck in Villas, near Cape May, New Jersey, so children in Broomall could still see Santa. A nighttime photograph from the family archive documents the decorated truck with Santa aboard and community participants riding along. A saved marketplace screenshot documents the type of vintage ladder truck and the Villas-area purchase lead, but it is not by itself proof of payment.

A restored red vintage Ford ladder fire truck at night, decorated with evergreen garland and a red sleigh mounted on the ladder rack, with a waving Santa in the sleigh and a group of riders standing on the rear step.
Broomall, December 2020 — the vintage ladder truck, decorated with garland and a sleigh, carrying Santa through the neighborhood. Riders are not individually identified.
Screenshot of an online marketplace listing showing a red vintage ladder fire truck marked Truck 1 parked on grass with its aerial ladder fully raised against a blue sky.
The saved marketplace listing for a vintage ladder truck in the Villas area near Cape May, New Jersey. It documents the vehicle type and the purchase lead, not a completed payment.

Evidence status

  • The December 7, 2020 board minutes corroborate the Santa drive-by itself, filed separately on The Record.
  • The purchase and funding statement is firsthand; no receipt, title or bill of sale is published here.
  • The marketplace screenshot evidences the vehicle type and the Villas-area listing, not a completed payment.
  • No statement is made or implied about any legal duty of the fire department; the account describes only that the usual Santa rounds were not being run that year.
  • Nick identifies the December 2020 issue of Marple Friends & Neighbors (Best Version Media), linked below, as Santa and civic-association coverage from that month. No article title, page range, captions or participants are claimed from it here.

Also reported by

No public link — held in the family's personal archive. This summary is written for this site and is not a reproduction of any original article.