Debbie Trantham lovingly gets called all kinds of names: Santa Lady, Dream Lady, Fiber Lady. “They all work,” she says with a laugh. In fact, each does accurately describe her: She’s the one-woman show behind Fiber Dream Santas, a farm-based artisan collectibles company with an old-world Christmas theme.
Trantham has turned an agricultural venture into a literal Santa’s workshop. “Everything is made from a fiber on my farm,” she explains. That includes her felted ornaments — miniature replicas of her own Cotswold sheep, which graze contentedly at her homestead in Candler — and her Santas’ abundant, show-stopping facial hair. “I have bred the sheep to create a curl that’s very unique for my work,” she shares. “And because I raise my own animals, I don’t have to be stingy with that fiber.” Trantham separates and washes each strand to get her signature Santa look. Mind you, while they all have bushy or flowing beards, no two of her Clauses are ever quite the same.
Their luxurious locks are just one factor that distinguish her signed-and-numbered Santas from others on the market. She hand-sculpts the faces from clay and paints the features, builds their bodies in her woodshop, and sews each article of clothing just as she would were she making it for herself, even fully lining the coats. Some Santas get handmade toys, while custom orders get tailor-made accoutrements — think gardening tools for a collector with a green thumb, or a bird house for an ornithologist.
Santa-making is a meticulous, time-consuming process: a small Santa takes Trantham an average of 10 hours to complete, a larger one upwards of 20; a life-size Santa might stretch over an entire week. Since 1998, she has crafted 758 Santas of all sizes, keeping track of their journeys to homes across the country.
It’s a dream job that combines her varied talents and passions. As a child, she spent time with her father in his woodworking studio, fashioning Barbie-doll cars out of scraps. And she watched her mom sew, eventually inheriting a machine around age eight. “I was as comfortable with a hammer and nails as I was a sewing machine and thread,” Trantham recalls.
She studied art through college but eventually switched majors, unsure how she would make a living with an art degree. “It wasn’t until I decided to begin my own company that I brought together the artwork, the sewing, the woodworking,” she notes, “and was somehow able to pull all of it together into one business.”
Of course, the business also integrates her love of animals and animal husbandry. She was first introduced to Cotswold sheep in 1992. Enamored, she decided instantly she would raise them herself at her family farm. At that time in the U.S., they were rare, numbering only in the hundreds. But thanks to farmers like Trantham, they’re making a comeback. Today, her Santas pay to feed and house her sheep and perpetuate the heritage breed.
For Trantham, this sheep-to-Santa cycle personifies the spirit of Christmas: giving. Her customers give her the joy of farming, while she gives them the joy of an heirloom that can be passed down through generations. Sometimes the Clauses are serene, sometimes jolly, sometimes garbed in Old World green and a little melancholy. She says her collectors “envision what Christmas is all about through the face of their Santa.”
Learn more about Debbie Trantham’s farm and her vintage-style Santas and ornaments at fiberdreamsantas.com, and via Etsy, or call 828-665-1360.