The Santa who sounded the alarm Brittany Shammas, The Washington Post Dec. 19, 2020 FacebookTwitterEmail Art Hoffman broke out the Santa suit early this year. It was April, his Louisville neighborhood quiet in the shock of the first coronavirus lockdowns. He strolled from house to house holding up a sign: "Hello and Love from Santa." He waved at the delighted kids - always from a distance Santa Claus doesn't usually keep. The pandemic was warping everyone's sense of time, but that wasn't the only reason for Hoffman's out-of-season appearance. Even then, he was growing convinced that a typical Christmas would be unlikely in 2020. He had been performing as Santa for 45 years, but he had also spent years working in public health. And he feared the worst was yet to come.