Marthins Hidungoran, who is originally from Maluku, has been directing traffic on Jl. Wora-Wari in Banjarsari district, Surakarta, Central Java, on Christmas Day for four years. However, the reason why he is attracting so much attention is because he helps the traffic police at the busy intersection dressed as Santa Claus.

As a Christian, Martins attended the Christmas Eve Mass at his church. The next day, he dressed up as Santa Claus to direct traffic in the area that is always busy during the Christmas and New Year holidays.

Blowing a whistle and shouting “be careful,” Marthins stood for about an hour at the intersection in the scorching heat.
Nobody asked him to do it. It was purely his way of celebrating Christmas.

His actions, however, entertained the motorists. One of them was Dodo who pulled over to take a picture of Marthins in action.

Marthins does his gig voluntarily and the only things that he asked for was that road users be careful, respect each other and not cause accidents and traffic jams in the area. [yan]