Mrs. Claus Carries on a Family Tradition

1203
Mike Hastry, Maureen Starace’s father, played Santa Claus in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade for years. Courtesy Monmouth Museum

By Judy O’Gorman Alvarez

LINCROFT – Maureen Starace knows how important Santa Claus is to children – the man, the story, the image.

The Matawan resident has been a longtime Monmouth Museum employee, working as a docent and helping to coordinate children’s crafts programs and most recently working in conjunction with The Arc of Monmouth County on a project called Making Art Possible.

Although she’s not an artist, Starace has a degree in art history and a love of crafts and, more importantly, working with children. “I like to do crafts and working with the kids is so enjoyable,” she said.

But this holiday season, Starace is taking on a new role; one you might say she was raised to play – Mrs. Claus.

Most of Starace’s friends and coworkers know her tidbit of childhood trivia: Her father, Mike Hastry, was the official Santa Claus at the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.

When Erika Schaefer joined Monmouth Museum as executive director she learned about Starace’s father and thought having Starace appear as Mrs. Claus would be a great addition to the opening reception of the museum’s holiday exhibit this year. The festive display opened Sunday, Nov. 21 and features the museum’s nostalgic trains display winding through the Main Gallery and a rainbow-themed 12-foot Christmas tree. This year, Mrs. Claus led story time and crafts for children in the Wonder Wing.

Starace was delighted to step into the role. “My father’s probably ho-ho-hoing all the way from wherever he might be,” she said.

Starace grew up in the Bay Ridge neighborhood of Brooklyn. Her dad had a hand in coordinating – and for years playing – Santa Claus in the famous parade.

“He worked for Macy’s for 50 years,” Starace said of her father who started at the famous department store as an 18-year-old stock boy. “Over the years, he did different things at Macy’s,” she said. “At one point he ran the maintenance department.” But he was always involved in the iconic Thanksgiving Day Parade.

“For over 50 years he was working the parade in all different capacities and for 22 of those years, ranging from the early ’80s to early 2000s, he was Santa in the parade.”

And Hastry looked like jolly old St. Nick. He was a strapping Irishman “with the red cheeks and the big belly,” Starace said, “only he didn’t have the actual beard.”

Mrs. Claus – Maureen Starace – reads to the children at the Monmouth Museum. She explained to her listeners that Santa is very busy in his workshop getting ready to make his Christmas deliveries. Lynne Ward

Starace remembers a makeup artist, who worked on Broadway’s “Beauty and the Beast” actors, would come to the Hastry house every Thanksgiving morning to turn her dad into the red-suited man with the hearty laugh who spent the afternoon waving to crowds and delighting children along the 2.5 mile parade route.

“So we always had this kind of strange Thanksgiving,” Starace remembered. While Mom was roasting the turkey and trimmings, the five Hastry children were with Dad cruising down Broadway in the parade. 

“My poor mother would do all the cooking all day and then we get home, we’d be too tired to eat,” she said. “I was in the parade my entire life.”

The family tradition continued when the next generation came along. “At first we didn’t really tell the kids that was Grandpa, but then they kind of figured it out because they were on the float with him.”

In later years, when he grew ill, Hastry was still involved with the parade, as a character called Capt. Macy. “He loved it all. He actually hand-picked the current Santa in the parade – whose beard is real, by the way,” she said.

“He passed away at 2 a.m. on Dec. 26, 2007,” Starace said. “Almost as if he had to finish his Christmas duties that year.”

Now Starace’s kids are 31 and 34 and get a kick out of their mother’s gig as Mrs. Claus, as does her mother, siblings and husband.

On Sunday Mrs. Claus read “Santa Is Coming to New Jersey,” by Steve Smallman to the children gathered around her at the museum, including one of her granddaughters. 

“Daddy’s probably laughing that the tradition carries on,” Starace said.

For more information or to reserve a space for story time with Mrs. Claus, visit monmouthmuseum.org.

The article originally appeared in the November 25 – December 1, 2021 print edition of The Two River Times.