Santa Claus meets with Brunswick children over video conferencing platform Zoom on Friday as concerns around the spread of coronavirus continue. Hannah LaClaire / The Times Record

Delaney Morey, a Brunswick fourth-grader, chats with Santa Claus over Zoom on Friday. Hannah LaClaire / The Times Record

Delaney Morey and Kai Lewis were two of the first to meet with Santa Claus on Friday, who met with children virtually all the way from the North Pole. 

Santa, known in the off-season as Tom Barter, set up a laptop in his workshop to meet with dozens of Brunswick kids from a safe distance as cases of COVID-19 continue to increase across Maine. 

For decades, Santa Claus has landed in Brunswick shortly after the Thanksgiving holiday and met with children in the town mall gazebo for hours while families enjoyed hot chocolate and cookies, Christmas music and horse-drawn carriage rides, with the evening culminating with the annual tree lighting. It is an event that typically draws over 1,000 people, something that Deb King, executive director of the Brunswick Downtown Association knew would not be possible or responsible this year, so they decided on a virtual meeting with Santa to help spread some holiday cheer and Christmas magic.

This story has been updated to correct Kai Lewis’s last name. A previous edition misstated it.

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