By Dave Parsons
10 years ago, EastIdahonews.com was one of hundreds of online news sources and websites. It was the week of Christmas that the boss man, Nate Eaton, took a phone call from a complete stranger, that changed his life, and the lives of hundreds of people living in East Idaho. The “Secret Santa” on the other end that day a decade ago, has also changed the lives of people around the world. This cup of coffee with Nate Eaton took place on zoom when I was lucky enough to get a few minutes of his time between Secret Santa surprises.
ME: How did East Idaho News start?
NATE EATON: I worked in television for about 10 years and then I got an offer to come and launch this news website, East Idaho News. So, we’re about 10 years old. We were originally part of a radio station group here in Eastern Idaho, but now we’re on our own. I run it with a couple of other people and, um, yeah, we’ve grown along the way and, here we are.
ME: I know Secret Santa is one man. How did all that start though?
NATE EATON: It was our first year. I got a phone call. I was sitting in this very office and it was a couple of days before Christmas, a few days and I got a call randomly from a local person who I didn’t really know. He said I have $100,000. I’d like to give it away to people that like are truly in need. I don’t know how to reach these people though. You run a news website, could you help? And I said, yeah, I think we can, but only if we can videotape these, because I was thinking, how could we get some good content! He said, okay, that could be fine. And, so I made a quick little video of Facebook posts, put it out there the next day and we got bombarded with emails. We just said, send us an email and it almost flooded our email system. And that first year, this was like three or four days before Christmas. So, we hurried out, we gave out the hundred thousand. I think we did like 13 people that first year. And then the secret Santa saw the videos and was like, I think we should do this every year. And then gradually over the years, it’s grown to $1 million a year.
ME: Okay. Again, I know he’s one man and you’re not going to tell me who he is, but what can you tell me about him?
NATE EATON: Well, that he wants to be anonymous and that he is a local to Eastern Idaho and that I think he wants to do this indefinitely till the day he dies and hopefully after. That’s my goal to have this continue forever.
ME: OK! Walk me through when you get this submission, walk me through where it goes before what we see on the videos.
NATE EATON: We get hundreds of nominations a day sometimes we will end up probably with three or four thousand total. That’s been our average per year. Every single one is read, not by me, but somebody on our team reads them one of the elves. And then from there, we have a meeting about every other day. I’m in it, and three or four other people and we discuss the names and we discuss their needs, and we call their references and we check their social media. We really try to vet to make sure the story is authentic. Every nomination there has to be references on there. You can’t nominate yourself. And then once everything checks out and we feel good about it, we’ll work with the secret Santa to determine what the needs are and what he wants to give them. And then once that’s decided, we will run out and grab gift cards, we’ll go get the checks, we’ll arrange to get the car if we’re giving away a car. And this all happens really fast because we do this over two months. And I don’t know in five days who we’ll be surprising. It could come in this afternoon and then we’re there at their doorstep in three days. I mean, it moves really quick. But that’s kind of the overall process as to how it works.
ME: I was going to ask you how do you and the news crew get the news stuff done during this time of year?
NATE EATON: It’s a challenge. Luckily, we fit it in and I mean, I pretty much do this full-time during November and December, but we have a team of reporters who are still covering news and then they come with us as often as we can. It’d be awesome if our entire staff could go to every surprise, we can’t. But, we just try to do the best we can.
ME: That’s why I was just wondering, because it seems like, you’ll say, you know, we’ve been sitting at her waiting for her for two hours or whatever for someone to come home, and how many hours do you spend a day doing, you know, doing the surprises? It’s got to be astronomical.
NATE EATON: It takes so much time and, um, we’re normally when we go out and shoot these, we’ll try to shoot five or six. Sometimes I think one day we did 13. So, you really have to manage the time and hopefully, hopefully catch everybody home. And most times they’re there, we’re able to find them, but sometimes we’re in a faraway city and no one knows where they are. That happened the other day. We drove 50 minutes. We could not find this woman and we ended up having to come back and go back a few days later. So that could be a little frustrating, but that’s life. We’re glad when we do find the people.
ME: Has anybody ever, well, first of all, has anybody ever just flat out tried to refuse? I know there was one gentleman one year and I just wonder if that happens a lot?
NATE EATON: It doesn’t happen a lot. It does happen, especially if they don’t know who we are. I really love it when they have no clue who we are. If they know who we are, and they recognize the Santa hats, they kind of know what’s coming. We don’t tell anyone what they’re getting until the box is opened. Nobody knows…..Except us…..and the secret Santa….But, there was one time I had a pretty big back and forth with a guy for about 20 minutes over how he needed to take it because I couldn’t take it back. It wasn’t mine. We didn’t air that video. There were some other circumstances that would have caused some family issues had we. So, it’s rare. Oh, and there was another time where a lady really was skeptical. We didn’t air that one either. But, most of the time the reactions are pretty, pretty authentic and they’re just so grateful.
ME: How do you keep from losing it?
NATE EATON: You know, there’s times where they hit me differently. We do a lot of these, so I’m kind of used to reactions. That sounds like I’ve become callous about it. But, a lot of times in editing all tear up. I’m there to present the gift and act on behalf of secret Santa and spread that message of love, but there have been a few where I’ve, you know, gotten choked up and reading the nominations and then seeing them, especially if there’s little kids. Those always, you know, tug at the heart strings, but overall, I’m just so happy that I get to go and give them this gift and hopefully it makes a difference to them.
ME: I think maybe what we see at home is not necessarily what you’re seeing on the ground.
NATE EATON: Yeah, it’s different. You know, we’re there live. We don’t have music playing. And sometimes it is more emotional in person, though. But I’ve been reporting the news nearly 20 years and, you know, I’ve covered funerals and tragedies and stuff like that that are very emotional. And I guess you’re kind of trained to be in the moment and bring the facts and bring the story rather than get caught up in the emotion.
ME: Yeah, you said about the music. I know if you start Silent Night or you start Oh Holy Night, it’s a good one.
NATE EATON: Yeah, we try to find some new tracks every year, but we go back to those, the goodies.
ME: Yeah, there’s like this moment of silence and then ding, ding, ding. I’m like, oh man, here it comes
NATE EATON: Right, right.
ME: This is a really good one. You’re getting, from interviews you’ve done. You’ve got people all over the world that you used to have the map with the pins on it…..
NATE EATON: Yeah. Well, every year at the end of the season, we give the map to the secret Santa. So, he has it, though every year we have a new map. But it’s crazy. It’s wild. How many countries, how many cities and countries that I’ve never even heard of that people are writing. And it’s daily. I got one from Israel the other day and Scotland and Australia and New Zealand. And it’s just amazing how many people have found these videos and normally most of the time it’s there on YouTube and it just pops up in their algorithm, their feed and they see more and more. So, it’s really touching to see how many people are touched by
this.
ME: Yeah, that’s what I was going to ask you. I mean, you couldn’t have had any idea if you’re going to have this much of an impact when you started….
NATE EATON: Not a clue, not a clue at all. And how many people will write and say like these videos have helped them through depression or hard times or given them hope. I mean, that’s just kind of an after effect of all of it, which is another cool thing that comes from it. That people just find, you know, hope in all of it. And then the other cool thing is how many people to say that it’s encouraging them to be their own secret Santa, which is the whole purpose of your shirt and the whole purpose of a secret Santa. He’s like, I’d love to start a movement where everybody around the world that you don’t have to have a million dollars. But if you’ve got 10 bucks at the grocery store and you help somebody, you’ve done it. And there’s magic in doing it anonymously.
ME: Right. Yeah, that when you said that, I find myself up at….and of course, you guys post probably 11 o’clock your time…..so I’m up at two o’clock in the morning. And I’m going…..I’m going to wait till they post before I go to bed.
NATE EATON: Oh, nice.
ME: I can probably tell you without hesitation, I’ve probably seen at least 95%.
NATE EATON: Wow.
ME: There was the one, the girl was a stylist at JC Penney. 2018?
NATE EATON: I remember her…
ME: I think it was 2018. That was the first one I saw. So out of all of those, I’m probably hitting good with this out of the blue, which one stands out the most? Which one was your favorite?
NATE EATON: I don’t have a favorite, but there are some that I’ll never forget. And I mean, there was one, a father of seven, you know, the ones that kind of, I guess, I’ll remember are the men that break down crying just because maybe I connect more to young men. We did a young man last year who’s raising his niece and nephew after their parents passed away. And we gave him some grocery store gift cards and Amazon. And he just started to sob on the front porch. That one was quite touching. And then a father of seven who their young mom suddenly dropped dead in the garage of a heart issue. And we surprised him after work. He didn’t know who we were. And he’s shuffling kids and transporting them between daycare and whatnot. And he just lost it to there in the parking lot of his job.
There was a woman that had like 96 jaw surgeries, just one thing after another in the driveway. And we actually went to her house and she wasn’t there. She was shoveling her neighbor’s driveway. And this was right in the COVID years. And we had masks on and we went over and she just couldn’t stop shaking. She was so moved by it.
So, I always say my favorite one is the last one we shot the last one we did. The ones that I’m able to go with on my family, we did one that we haven’t posted yet. It’ll go up in a few days that we did the day before Thanksgiving, which was really, really touching and fun for me to have my kids there to see it. So, I wish I could tell you that I have one overall, but I don’t. They are all unique.
ME: I’ve seen all the ones you were mentioning. I’ve seen all of those. The one with the family with the van.
NATE EATON: Oh, yeah, that was fun. Yeah. Family with 12.
ME: And the gentleman that you mentioned, you ended up doing follow up interviews with him, didn’t you?
NATE EATON: Right. He’s now remarried. And I see him around. It’s really cool when I see people around town that come up to me or when I see cars that say Secret Santa loves me on their plate. I try to pull up next to them just to see who it is. I would love to follow up on all of them. It’s just so time consuming to do. And this year, we did a call out for past recipients to send us video updates. And several have, we’re going to start posting those this week and then others sent in written updates. But yeah, I’d love because I know that’s one of the questions that we get so often about a lot of these families is well, whatever happened to the woman with the jaw condition and the driveway or whatever happened to the young man who was doing this. And I wish we had we need to hire somebody full time to just follow up on all of these people and do the updates.
ME: I’ll be honest with you. I had I had toyed with the idea about six weeks ago of, okay, so where do I fly into? I was going to come out and beg you to take me with you on one just to see it. When you said that, I was thinking the girl at Penneys, if she was still there, I was just going to make an appointment to go get my haircut and just start asking her questions.
NATE EATON: We have people that will follow up. We surprised a young man at Sam’s Club a few weeks ago and after for several days, even now people go in and they see him and one guy handed over $100 to him and just say, hey, I want to give you a hug, or this is for your baby. Just other people. We’d surprise a young man working at a pizza shop a few years ago. In the next day, somebody showed up with a laptop for him and someone called from New England and wanted to send over money. So, there is a ripple effect that just is incredible.
ME: That is that is totally crazy. I know I guess everybody kind of relates to whatever the stories of their life with certain ones. The gentleman you went to the DMV, you gave him a car. Darnold, was that his name?
NATE EATON: Yeah, yeah.
ME: He looks so much like my great uncle, it’s not even funny. And my uncle loved his car. That one touched me so much. He was so grateful that, you know, I think you gave him the key and you said, do you know how to start it? And he said, I don’t know nothing.
NATE EATON: Right. Right. I remember him. Yeah. Yeah.
ME: That was my uncle overdone. It was it was just crazy. So, I’m wondering, you said you hope it goes on forever. Do you want it to be a place where it would be the ultimate? I mean, I always wondered if you just brought up your buddy and if you just sent him an email and honestly show up at this place and have him come to you or would or would that lose the magic you think?
NATE EATON: Oh, you mean everyone that we’re going to surprise have been meet somewhere?
ME: Yeah, just have one big thing.
NATE EATON: Oh, you know, I haven’t thought about that. A lot of times, we did think this year about doing like a reception or a gathering for everyone who’s received a gift because it’s our 10th year and have everyone come together. But that that ended up not happening. And we don’t know like I said, we don’t know who we’re going to be surprising when.
So, I think that the goal is to not turn this into like a program or a charity or fundraising. The whole goal with Secret Santa is it’s a one-on-one type thing. We show up and this isn’t there’s a different feeling of if I tell you this is from a person, a person who’s aware of you. And this is to meet your need rather than some charity or some foundation wants to give you this check. It’s just there’s a different feeling and Secret Santa always wants it to be so personal and authentic and real. And, that’s why we’ll drive an hour and not find the person will even though it’d be much easier if we could set it all up and know where they’re at and tell their friends and they could come on camera with us. We used to do that in the beginning, but too many people were leaking and couldn’t keep it a secret.
So, I don’t know. I think I’m hopeful that long after Secret Santa dies, we’re still doing this and maybe long after I die, my daughter or somebody can take it over and run it. I hope that’s not very soon though.
