The month of July usually kicks off the flow of news about Christmas in the media thanks to the jolly gathering of professional Santas around the world. In years past we have seen them meet in Branson, Missouri talking about plans to make a reality television series on the life of a working Santa Claus. The media is quick to picture groups of Santas cheerfully meeting together to play baseball, take classes on how to correctly portray Santa Claus or to dance with Mrs. Claus. This news charms the world as it kicks off the run up to each Christmas season.
But hearts are not merry these days in the world of Santa Claus. The Wall Street Journal is blowing the lid off the story of bad Santas who just can’t get along. And Santa Claus — and Christmas — is getting a black eye in the process.
These men — paid professionals who portary Santa Claus to millions of kids from big parades in Hollywood to a mall near you — are fighting like raging school girls. Charges of embezzlement, violence, and ethics violations have bubbled up from the society of Santas worldwide and are now presented in the anti-Christmas media just in time to kick off the 2008 holiday season.
It might not be the publicity these Santas were seeking as they begin booking their 2008 season. But it is the publicity they are getting and richly deserve after years of promoting a saint for the purposes of lining their own grubby pockets.
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I don’t know who wrote this absolutly uninformed and totally off base opinion and I don’t know what axe he/she has to grind, but I do know that he/she hasn’t got a clue as to what motivates most professional Santas. It is true that there has been a great deal of unrest in the Santa community but this is largely confined to a small handfull of of players that are directly involved. Many other Santas have an opinion but are not active combatants in this fray.
Whoever wrote these words, “But it is the publicity they are getting and richly deserve after years of promoting a saint for the purposes of lining their own grubby pockets.”
knows little or nothing about the vast majority of the gentlemen who portray the Jolly Gent. My first question to this pitiful pundit is exactly what percentage of your gainful employment do you contribute to charity right off the top. I can tell you that most Professional Santas do 20% to 40% of their appearances for little or no fee as the work that they are doing is for handicapped or special needs populations, charity events or churchs. It is also quite apparent to me that this artless author shares a great misunderstanding with the rest of the general public as to the kind of income that the average professional Santa generates. I have had many a misinformed questioner tell me that he understands that Santas make $80,00 to $100,00 dollars for a two month season. I can tell you truthfully that there may be one or two of those Santas around, but I can assure you that I have never met one and I know an aweful lot of professional Santas. The highest paid mall Santa that I know of made a comfortable annual salary in that two months but he worked 7 days a week and with all of the “getting ready time” he worked 15 hours a day and had been in the same location for 28 years when he died a couple of years ago at 82 years of age and the work litteraly beat him to death. Santas that do private and corporate parties as I do make between $75.00 to $300.00 per hour based on their local economy but you have to factor into that a very high overhead as you are responsible to own and maintain an average of three to five different costumes that all have to be frequently dtry cleaned because you have a line of sticky little fingers with sticky little candy canes or lollipops all over your suit, in the velvet and the fur. you also have the occasional leaky diaper sitting on your lap, spilled drinks and spilled food and then remeber that these suits are very hot and lots of folks want their pictures in front of a raging fire, therefor we fat Santas sweat profusely. Then on an average day where I might have 5 paid hours of performance, I often average an additional 5 hours of travel
and with gasoline approaching $5.00 per gallon, this might be a tough season. a Decent Santa suit will cost between $500.00 and $2000.00 to $3,000 each and that doesn’t include leather boots, 4″ wide leather belts and large brass or Gold plated belt buckles. This also does not include all of the other props and acutriments that we use in our performances and the thousands of pictures, cards, stikers, candy canes and trinkets that we carry with us and pass out to children everywhere that we meet them year round. I won’t even go into the issue of maintaining snowy white hair and a long white beard.
Now I ask you, how many people do you know that have an occupation that fits all of these criteria as well as having to be background checked and carry personal liability insurance in case a child trips while getting on or off of your lap, but yet it is said that negative publicity is something that we “richly deserve after years of promoting a saint for the purposes of lining their own grubby pockets.” Does this assessment really seem fair to you? Respectfully submitted by Santa Tom Irving, Managing First Descendant, The Brotherhood of the Direct Descendants of Santa.
I find that the whole WSJ article has been distasteful, mostly because of its goal to besmirch Santas and Christmas rather than provide any real information or facts so that readers might be able to make up their own minds. I can assure you that the article writer had loads of conversations with many Santas and had loads of emails and faxes with information, but chose to ignore most of the facts and go for the dirt and the innuendo. Many of the Santa’s that I have heard from have said that much of their ‘interview’ was spent with the journalist trying to put words in their mouths sounding off at the opposition.
“He tried repeatedly to get me to say that (he) “pilfered” but I routinely refused that word and told him so.”
I also found your last line quite off the mark; “But it is the publicity they are getting and richly deserve after years of promoting a saint for the purposes of lining their own grubby pockets.”
Real Santas don’t ‘promote a saint’, they actually believe they are carrying on the good works that Saint Nicholas demonstrated through his life. We try to reach out to children, to understand what is going on in their lives and to help them have the freedom to dream and have wishes.
Do you have any idea what it costs a real Santa to keep the suit updated and looking good, the real leather belts and boots, the grooming and upkeep costs for a real beard – or the purchase and upkeep of a designer beard? Then the costs of travel between visits, the costs of running a business, the costs of doing the charity works that pretty well all of us do as part of taking our role seriously? Add in the costs of regular training and covering the legislative requirements and background checks that affect each and every one in close contact with children. Then you have to add in that most of us have amortise these costs over a 4 to 6 week period or our families don’t get food on the table.
The other side of the coin is that the Photo Companies and Malls are covering their considerable costs but not passing all that much of it onto their Santas, and when you add up just how long some of these Santas have to stay on the set without breaks, their take home pay is quite low in comparison to the work they have to put in.
As in all good things there may be a few that are in it just for the money, but they are few and outnumbered by the rest of us that have first and foremost the goal of bringing Love and Joy and Hugs to children everywhere.
No sir, I feel your comments about how we ‘richly deserve’ such a hack job article because of our “grubby pockets” do a disservice to the very many real Santas out there who do what we do because we love to share Love and Joy and Hugs with children and the children-at-heart.
We are not the money-grabbing toymakers or the Scrooge-like retailers cashing in on the season, we are not the bad guys trying to cash in on Christmas, they’ll do that anyway whether we’re there or not.
We are the good guys working our hearts out to keep Christmas as a focus for the kids and on the kids.
Surely that is a good thing?
Surely that goal shows that we don’t deserve the dumping that we seem to be attracting?
Hi
I always thought that Christmas and Santa Claus was for Kids!
There is too much commercialism these days!
Close all shops, and bring back the True meaning of Christmas and Santa!
Yours
Barry
A Big Kid!
You are right, some of the Santas involved in this incident deserve the publicity against them. However you are definitely wrong when you categorized them all together. There are many Santas like myself who do make good money being Santa, but we also do a lot of charity. My organization has never turned down a job because someone couldn’t afford us. However I have turned down jobs for people who didn’t want to spend what we were asking. Some folks write articles in newspapers, some play professional sports, some are engineers, some scientists, and almost all professionals accept money for what they do. Many enjoy attacking others, but never do anything for charity. There are only a handful of Santas in that category. Let it be known that all real Santas are in this for the love of seeing the gleam in the children’s eyes. I apologize for the others.
I wouldnt consider so..
. what I would believe it would be their fault because they were the ones stupid adequate to do it. So I dont consider so.