Jonathan Lane

Born in 1967, Jonathan grew up in New York City and earned a bachelors degree in Psychology from Cornell University. But his life took many different roads from there. He went on to study Graphic Design at Pratt Manhattan and then moved to southern California in 1993 to start a multimedia company with his brother David. One of the pioneers of Internet marketing on the World Wide Web, Jonathan helped design the first-ever online interactive children’s game for Disney’s Toy Story website in 1995. Later, Jonathan went on to be the Creative Director for Nestle’s Willy Wonka Candy Factory website for six years, designing over 40 interactive games, helping to write children’s content and lesson plans, answering Willy Wonka’s e-mail, and even providing the voice of Willy Wonka on the website itself.

Jonathan went on to do some interesting things in recent years. For Christmas of the year 2000, he took a trip to Antarctica (to give Santa Claus more of a challenge). He then started a small business selling his nature photography on greeting cards. For a while, Jonathan became a teacher of first through sixth grades, specializing in computer education.

But Jonathan’s biggest adventure began in September of 2010 when he and his wife Wendy adopted a newborn baby boy and brought him home to Los Angeles. In January of 2012, Sal came to visit southern California for a few weeks on business, and he stayed with Jonathan and his family. Their son Jayden, then 16 months old, had just started talking, and took an immediate liking to their white bearded house guest. Within a few days, Jayden was saying “Santa” even though he hadn’t yet said either “Mama” or “Dada”! True story.