Rener Gracie previously gave an interview to a writer at BloodyElbow, where he went into detail about his family Christmas traditions that dated all the way back to Helio Gracie. The Gracie family is gigantic with each generation of the family having dozens of members, and their lineage being spread out among several different couples within the family. As with much of what the Gracie family does even today, their Christmas traditions all began with Helio Gracie and Rener explains what they looked like back then:
“My dad goes all the way. He has a history that comes from the grandmaster. Grandmaster Helio, my grandfather, every Christmas in Brazil, would dress up in full Santa Clause regalia, and he would get on a black stallion, a black horse, in the middle of the night on Christmas Eve, would come galloping onto the property with a bag full of presents. He would get off the horse, and climb off the ladder, and go in to give out presents to all the kids in the Gracie compound, as we called it. My dad grew up with that whole thing so he tried to preserve that here.”
Rener’s father is Rorion Gracie, one of Helio’s many sons. As Rener explains, the Gracie family Christmas traditions that Helio began don’t quite work the same way in modern America so Rorion had to adapt when it came to his children:
“My dad has gone to every extent necessary to preserve that situation for the little ones. He doesn’t come up in a black stallion in the middle of the street in Torrance, CA, but he’ll get all dressed up and go across the street in the middle of the night, where he gets on top of the neighbour’s house, so that when the kids look out the window, they’ll see Santa on top of the house. He comes down with all the presents and crosses the street like a little old man. Then he hands out the presents to all the kids. He goes all the way, 100%.”
Of course, no matter what traditions any generation of the Gracie family stuck to in order to keep the magic alive at Christmas, it’s only a matter of time before kids realise the truth:
“That worked for me until I was 8 years old. It’s so funny because I was sitting down to open my presents, and I reached up to grab his beard to look under it, because he was very good at making this disguise. When I lifted the beard, he slapped my hand away from it and he reprimanded me using a Portuguese reprimand that only he did, my whole life. Now my dad has me dress up as Santa, because there are always kids being born in our family, so it’s always necessary for a new Santa Clause.”
