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When I was 21 years old, I had a job playing Santa Claus in a shopping centre in Sacramento. I was rail thin, so it's not like I was a traditional Santa Claus even then. I had a square stomach; that was the shape of the sofa cushion that I had stuffed into my pants.

I was once part of a Christmas cabaret. I sang 'I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus.' I tap-danced. I had a ten-gallon hat. It was quite absurd.

The first sort of big present I remember getting from Santa Claus was quite a small telescope that I remember going into our backyard with my parents and figuring out how to assemble, and staring at the night sky, just for hours, with both of my parents.

I remember driving to North Carolina when I was a little girl in a snowstorm to get down to my mom's family in the Carolinas. There were chains on the car - it was the late sixties - and we were just singing in the car. Christmas carols.

I remember wishing there was snow in L.A. And how jealous we used to get of those Christmas specials with kids playing in the snow.

I stopped believing in Santa Claus when I was six. Mother took me to see him in a department store and he asked for my autograph.

I used to sleep in the T-shirt I wore during the day and whatever ratty old gym shorts I could find on the floor. But one year for Christmas, someone gave me a very chic, comfortable pair of pajamas from Brooks Brothers, and I realized the error of my ways.

I was Santa Claus in first year of primary school, our elementary's school play, because I had most panache, that was probably why. I was 5.