Allan Appel Photo
Flashing lights accompanySanta to Shell and Bones.
A train, a doll house, an iPhone 6, an iPhone7, an American Girl doll, and a happy city.
Those were some of the wishes made by the kids of City Point along with their mayor.
Claus and his Mrs. with a wish-maker.
They all were expressed on sunny Saturday morning at the Shell and Bones restaurant overlooking the harbor at City Point, where restaurant owners Rob and Donna Bolduc and long-time area resident and activist Carmen Rodriguez hosted about 50 kids and their parents, aunts, uncles, and grandmothers at a warm pre-holiday breakfast.
For the second year the Bolducs and the other owners of the restaurant carried on the tradition started by previous owner Dave McCourt, who for at least 20 years hosted a pre-Christmas tree lighting at his establishment, which was then called Sage American Grill and Oyster Bar.
When Bolduc and his partners were negotiating to buy the business, McCourt invited them to the holiday event. That was three years ago, when the Bolducs’ son, Jacques, was a baby. The Bolducs were impressed by the warmth and the community feel of the event.
Rob Bolduc (kneeling), with his wife behind him, with Claus, the mayor, and firemen and paramedics.
When they bought the business, they changed the name and the cuisine, to focus on seafood and New England culinary traditions. They remodeled the place so that now each seat in the sunlit room has an ocean view. But they kept the tradition of the party, although they shifted it from a Saturday evening to Saturday brunch so that the kids would be wide awake and enjoy the event.
They also maintained the signature centerpiece of the get-together, the arrival of Santa and his missus courtesy of the New Haven Fire Department, which delivered the red-clothed bearded gift-giver in Engine 11 straight from the North Pole with a brief stop at the Howard Avenue firehouse.
One of the accompanying firemen said the road conditions were a little icy, but the arrival was on time for the kids, who were arrayed on the restaurant steps, each armed with a cup of paper snow, to make their contributions to the atmosphere.
4-year-old Tatum Cannon waited on the Claus line, hopeful and with her wish list.
Once inside the kids wrote their wishes on a sheet of paper, went to enjoy fresh pancakes and ham baked with a bourbon glaze by the restaurant’s culinary director Arturo Frank Camacho.
At last year’s event, Santa and the kids dined on bagels and other goodies. This year warm pancakes, waffles, maple syrup and whip cream, and glazed ham were offered, and sweet aromas filled up the sun-lit main room of the restaurant.
It wasn’t long before the Clauses had made their way in, shaking hands with children of all ages and negotiating the touches and looks of amazement by the younger folks. They arrived at their seats by the cozy fire so the gift-wishing and gift-giving might begin.
Chef Camacho serves up baked ham with a bourbon/maple glaze, and homemade pancakes.
The Bolducs subsidized all the pancakes, waffles, cookies, candy canes and other treats of the season. The primo organizer, Carmen Rodriguez, a longtime City Point resident and a counselor at Yale-New Haven Hospital, took care of the gift-buying and gift-bag-making.
Mayor Toni Harp arrived just as Mrs. Claus had calmed down a bunch of the kids excited to check out the toys, books, old fashioned paddle and ball games, and other treats in their gift bags.
While the kids in a fireside reading circle stayed interested in Dr. Seuss’s How The Grinch Stole Christmas as narrated by Mrs. Claus, several of the kids’ parents opted out of story time to greet the mayor.
Some asked to be in photographs with Herronner.
Mayor Harp obliged, including taking a picture with 1‑year-old Carter Crockett. Something about the child impressed deeply, because during the photo session, Harp declared, “He’s going to be the next mayor,” Harp declared.
His grandmother, Anna Duque, had higher hopes: “We’re going to help him educate him, so he can be the mayor and even more, maybe the next president.”
Then the kids lined up to sit on Santa’s lap to offer him their wish lists in writing and in words.
Asked which of her three items on the list she would choose — the iPhone, the American doll, or a doll house — if Santa limited her wish to one, Tatum answered without hesitation, “American Doll.”
The mayor too faces many choices. Asked what she would wish for from Santa, she replied, also without hesitation, “a happy city.”