Seven-year-old Branden Lee Tsuji-Jones wants colored magnets and marbles for Christmas and told Santa so yesterday using American Sign Language.

For the 15th consecutive year at Pearlridge Center, "Deaf Santa" received the Christmas wishes of about 130 deaf and hard-of-hearing children from all over Hawai'i yesterday.

Last year, Branden was in the hospital with pneumonia and couldn't visit with Deaf Santa. So his mother, Ami Tsuji-Jones, wanted to make sure Branden could communicate his wishes this year directly to Deaf Santa (whose real name is always kept a secret).

"He just loves seeing a Santa who can sign," said Ami Tsuji-Jones, who teaches American Sign Language at Kapi'olani Community College.

Many of the kids sat on Deaf Santa's lap yesterday. They pulled out lists of toys. And, yes, several of the smaller kids cried like, well, babies.

It's an annual slice of Americana.

And its normalcy has been the driving point behind the program since it began in 1991 at the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and the Blind — a Department of Education School in Kapahulu — and moved the following year to Pearlridge, said Doreen Higa, a speech pathologist at the Hawaii Center for the Deaf and the Blind who founded the program with Jan Fried.

"One of the normal growing-up events in life is Christmas, and Christmas means Santa," Higa said. "Our deaf kids can't answer Santa because they can't hear him. We just wanted a normal situation, where Santa says, 'What do you want for Christmas?' and it's not the older brother saying, 'He wants a train.' Instead, it's just a normal part of living. That's what we want, so they can do what every other kid does."

As she does every year, Julie McCreedy brought deaf and hard of hearing students from 'Aikahi Elementary School in Kailua to community with a Santa Claus "who understands them," McCreedy said.

"They get to socialize with other deaf children from around Hawai'i and get to meet Santa," she said.

But Karina Kia, 2 1/2, had her first visit with Deaf Santa yesterday and told him in American Sign Language that she wants a doll and a train for Christmas.

"When kids are deaf and go to a mall to visit Santa, they can't sit in his lap and tell him what they want," said Karina's mother, Rosalino Kia. "To be able to talk to Santa is the coolest thing for a child."