Joel Haas has a decades-long tradition of putting up a quirky homemade Santa sculpture display in front of his house.
by Ayn-Monique Klahre | photography by Joshua Steadman

For 25 years, Joel Haas has been delighting his neighbors with a quirky holiday sculpture in his front yard. He calls it Santa Claus and the Eight Tiny Rimdeer. Yes, “rimdeer,” not reindeer, because their bodies are made from the rims of old wheelbarrow wheels — and Santa’s sled is made from an old wheelbarrow bed.

Inspiration struck at a blacksmith convention nearly three decades ago. “Someone had a box of extra parts and tools, and I picked up a wheelbarrow bed, and thought, this would make a great sleigh,” Haas says. Each rimdeer has a wheel rim for its body, the front fork of a bicycle for its nose and antlers, lug nuts for eyes and hooves, and scrap steel and springs for the legs and neck. Their tails are made from the inside of garden trowel handles. Each has its own personality; some are looking up and others gaze at the viewer. “I have a figurative background, so it was important to me that they all have their own expressions,” says Haas.

Santa is made from a large Freon can and a grain scoop, with a funnel for a hat and a beard made from old electric parts. His shoes are little bulldozer teeth. “I say they’re Italian boots, because they’re stamped ‘made in Italy,’” laughs Haas. The display spans up to 20 yards long, with each of the pieces connected by twinkle lights.

Haas, who is in his 70s, has long been making sculptures from found objects. He grew up in Raleigh, the child of a mother who ran a theater supply store and a novelist father. “With those two as parents, it was unlikely I’d grow up to be an accountant,” he says. 

Historically, he’s worked a lot with steel, but now he often uses lighter materials like wood and plastics for his pieces. “I think in scraps — I’ll have an idea for a project, then decide what to make it from,” says Haas.

Haas leaves the display up in front of his house, which is near the intersection of Spring Forest and Falls of Neuse Roads, until the end of Serbian Christmas in early January (his wife is Serbian). “We have people who come by to see them every year, they’re very positive,” Haas says.  

This article originally appeared in the December 2024 issue of WALTEr magazine.