NORTHAMPTON — Every December, thousands of children and adults alike are enchanted as they drink hot cocoa and watch miniature trains spin around the elaborate villages set up at Look Park.
Local institutions sponsor a train for the “Santa’s Trains” event, with their logo and name painted elegantly across the small train car. And for the past nine years, one man has been responsible for painting those trains.
“I don’t go by the term artist,” Gary LaCroix, 73, of Easthampton, said on Thursday when a reporter asked him about his work. “I paint stuff.”
LaCroix tried to retire from painting the cars last year, but was drawn back this year, which he says is really his last. He said that the event’s organizers currently don’t have a replacement for him.
“Physically, I just don’t think I can do it,” he said. LaCroix paints the cars in his workshop at home, which itself features a miniature train that runs around the room.
Every year since Santa’s Trains began, LaCroix has been painting the trains. There have some challenges along the way, including a handful of misspellings he had to fix.
“The cars are only a certain size,” he said when asked about other challenges. “Sometimes people want too much on the car.”
Mostly, LaCroix said, it has just been fun to contribute to an event that draws in so many from the community. But he was quick to praise the Pioneer Valley S Gaugers Model Railroad Club, which sets up and runs the trains every year.
“All I do is come in and paint,” he said. “They’re the ones that make this happen.”
LaCroix said he began painting many years ago, when he painted a name on the back of the boat he kept at the Oxbow Marina: “Beats Working.” Since then, he has painted everything from T-shirts for the marina to a motorcycle trailer. In 2012 he painted one of the bears at Bear Fest — a citywide celebration of the arts in Easthampton.
As for his future plans, LaCroix said he hopes to continue painting. But he doesn’t quite know what he will paint.
“Depends what comes up,” he said. “I would like to paint bigger stuff.”
Dusty Christensen can be reached at dchristensen@gazettenet.com.