Below a rather large Christmas tree decked with children’s handmade decorations and white lights, Santa Claus waited calmly in a wooden rocking chair, dressed in a furry red and white jacket, pants fastened by a belt with a gold buckle, and black rubber boots.

As youngsters peered toward him around the corner of the entrance to Denton’s Ann Windle School for Young Children, he looked in their direction as one called out, “Hi, Santa!”

The children sat in front of him, and one by one, an elf picked up the youngsters and sat them on Santa’s lap. He greeted them, took a photo with them and asked, “Can you tell Santa what you want for Christmas?”

Children asked for Spider-man, horses and cars, among other wishes.

Others just said, “Umm …”

Then Santa said, “Look at what Santa has for you. Do you like trains?”

Smiles crossed the faces of some as he gave the children handmade wooden trains, along with a gift bag that included fruit and a Christmas book.

For the past four years, Richard Keck — a 71-year-old school volunteer  with an authentic, long white beard — has dressed up as Santa and distributed handmade wooden toys to each Ann Windle student.

This year, the Denton resident built and distributed more than 400 trains for the school’s students and staff.

“It’s the best experience I’ll ever have in my life,” Keck said. “It just thrills me to death to see these children. It makes it all worthwhile.”

Keck started preparing for his Wednesday and Thursday trips to the school more than three months ago, constructing toys in the woodshop inside his one-car garage.

DRC/Barron Ludlum

Richard Keck as Santa Claus gives Alyssa Sparks, 4, a wooden train he made for Christmas. Keck, a volunteer at the Ann Windle School for Young Children, makes trains and gives them to all the students at the school.

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Using wood pallets and mahogany bed frames donated to him, Keck said he spent no more than $150 to purchase oil, glues and sandpaper to polish and put together the toys.

The process took him about 450 hours, he said. In previous years, he made wooden helicopters, tractors and whistles, and next year he hopes to make a three-piece dinosaur puzzle.

Keck, a former industrial maintenance mechanic and Air Force aircraft mechanic, said because he was in the military, he didn’t have the opportunity to spend a lot of time with his own children when they were growing up.

For the past five years, volunteering at Ann Windle has provided a way for him to give back to the community, present a positive male figure for students and spend time with others’ children in a way he wasn’t able to with his own.

“This is a way for me to recover some of those lost moments … ” Keck said, referring to the time he missed with his own children. “I know a lot of these children here don’t have a father figure in their family, and it helps me to maybe let them see a grandfather figure that they may not have ever seen in their lives and just actually show the kids that other people care about them, they love them, and that’s what it’s all about for me.”

Ann Windle Principal Ron Arrington said Keck, who’s also vice president of the school’s Head Start policy council, demonstrates his love for the students and campus in spending his summers building Christmas toys. When the moment arrives for Keck to distribute the toys, Arrington said the excitement on his students’ faces is impressive.

“He’s very jovial and happy- go-lucky — just what they need,” Arrington said. “He [provides] someone to listen to them.”

BRITNEY TABOR can be reached at 940-566-6876. Her e-mail address is btabor@dentonrc.com.