Mick Foley On Life As ‘Saint Mick,’ A Few Of His Favorite Christmas Things (Exclusive)
(Photo by Timothy Hiatt/Getty Images)
If you know Mick Foley, then you know that the man loves the Christmas season. Not only does the WWE Hall of Famer embrace the yuletide cheer with his family but he is sure to share it with others.
Mick spoke with WrestleZone’s Dominic DeAngelo about plenty of aspects, including his ongoing Have A Nice Day Tour that finishes up 2019 at The Stand in New York City on December 30 (plenty of tour dates in 2020 too), but talked about life with the red cap on as Santa Claus.
“It’s difficult because you’re obviously going to have small children there and one of the things that I learned about telling the stories of small children as they, in a sense, become the world’s smallest hecklers, you know?”
Mick distinctly remembers one time in which he read to kids as Santa in his childhood library and his audience while engaged, had a lot to share about their experiences with Santa as well.
“I detail this in the Saint Mick book about how one of these events went so well where I’m telling stories and one of the library things went pretty well and I was gearing up to correct the mistakes I made the first time. Had my children on hand, three of my children and my mother at the library where I grew up and it turned out that it was like a sprawling former mansion with no sound system so it wasn’t an activity room like the other libraries so a lot of people couldn’t hear me and then I had hecklers in the sense that as I’m trying to tell stories about my North Pole, I’ve got little kids going, ‘That’s not how it goes, Santa! That’s not how it goes!’ And then I made the mistake of mentioning the names of some of the elves at which point every child under the name of five felt compelled to mention the name of their elf.”
Mick also shares about how he just performed with Nora Jones Sasha Dobson and Catherine Popper of Puss n Boots and how they and partied with Bill Murray on stage together.
“It’s an awesome event. Bill came out and he tore the house down with White Christmas and we got to go on stage and dance together and we were a part of the Silent Night finale, then I do my Christmas Eve visits and Christmas Day visits. I’ve been to the local cancer center and I’ve been doing things the Christmas Magic organization here on Long Island so it’s pretty full plate here in December.”
“A Few Of Foley’s Favorite Things”
Favorite Christmas Musical Artist & Favorite Christmas Song?
“Oh, Nat King Cole. So the entire body of his Christmas work although my favorite Christmas song is “Old Toy Trains” by Roger Miller (“Joe Nichols does a heck of a version as well, very earnest”) and if you count “Hands” by Jewel as a Christmas song that’d be number three.”
Favorite Christmas Movie?
“Oh hey, I walked off set when someone on ‘The Bump’ said that Elf was overrated. I was furious. If anything it’s underrated to this day. Elf is my favorite, the Alastair Sim version of A Christmas Carol, although I’ll be watching the new FX dark version of A Christmas Carol tonight. Gotta loved Scrooged especially because I now dance with Bill Murray every December. And if someone’s looking for something out of the box and has Netflix, go on The Twilight Zone and find “The Night of the Meek.” I think it’s in season two with Art Carney as a down on his luck department store Santa. It’s awesome. I try to watch it every year.”
Favorite Christmas Cookie & Dessert?
“Jill Thompson who has illustrated a couple of my children’s books and has illustrated that iconic CM Punk shirt several years back, she makes the best Christmas cookies in the business. I don’t even know if they have traditional names to them. I think they’re her own creations, but if I had to go with something, I like a classic homemade gingerbread. I like a snickerdoodle, I like anything with peanut butter, I like anything with pumpkin, yeah, I’m pretty easy that way. Favorite desserts are pumpkin pie and shoofly pie.”
Favorite Christmas?
“Christmas in 2012 was tough to beat because of the incredible interaction we had with the real Santa Claus. This is the same guy who came on stage with me when I was inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame. He’s the real deal. Even has it on his license, you know. Legally changed his name and I appreciate that type of commitment to character. And yeah, that was just an amazing Christmas for the rest of the family and it really gave me something to aspire to when I go out and make visits of my own. So seeing first hand you know, what a difference a great interaction could make made me want to create interactions along that line.”
(Transcription credit should go to @DominicDeAngelo of WrestleZone)
Enjoy the entire Christmas fueled conversation between Foley and DeAngelo below and be sure to check out all the tour dates for Mick’s “Have A Nice Day Tour” that starts in Greenville, SC on January 6! Happy Holidays from us all at WrestleZone!