| From the Atlanta Journal Constitution - August 24, 2005 | |||||||||
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Jolly bunch goes extra mile for job Look, not just any old body can be Santa. You can be jolly. You can have a beard as white as snow. You can even have your own red-nosed reindeer.
Those things still won't, in and of themselves, make you Santa. No, the best Santas need training. Which is why, with just 127 days left until Christmas, about 100 showed up at the International University of Santa Claus — an event for real-bearded Santas. Seriously, a conference room full of them, on Saturday at the Salvation Army in Lawrenceville. What a sight to behold. A sea of snow white and salt and pepper hair covering heads and jowls. Tall men, short men, heavy men, too-dang-thin-to-be-Santa men. As Floyd Likins of Opelika, Ala., put it, he'd "never seen so many good-looking people in one spot." Most had performed Santa duties in the past, whether at family parties, malls or events. But this was the day to learn the finer points of the job. The distinguished professor of Santa U. was a man who knows what it is to make a business of being Santa. Timothy Connaghan of Lakewood, Calif., has been performing as Santa for more than three decades, since his days as an Army sergeant in Vietnam. He is the author of "Behind the Red Suit, the Business of Santa Claus." He's served as the executive director for the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas — a group of about 300 guys who perform as Santa at malls and events around the country. Connaghan was the vision of what one would imagine Santa looking like in his off hours, perhaps at a spring cocktail party: bold red and white shirt, bright red pants and a pair of gleaming red-and-white, patent-leather lace-ups of the Stacy Adams variety. Very chic. Very candy cane. The advice he gave was no less arresting. On the ho-ho-hoing, Connaghan advised his audience, most of them older gentlemen, to be careful not to scare children. "A lot of us wear hearing aids, so remember to moderate your voice," Connaghan said. As for taking pictures with babies in diapers and small kids not of potty-training age, it's best to have an extra suit on hand or at least a blanket. And if a child says all she wants for Christmas is for her parents not to get a divorce, reassure the child that no matter what, Mom and Dad love them very much. The advantage to being an RBS, or Real Bearded Santa as it's called in the industry, was clear. The men looked like, well, they looked like the real deal. Tom Ryan has been Santa for the past three years at the Forum in Norcross. Four years ago he let the shadow on his chin and cheeks grow out and it made "all the difference" in his believability among kids, who, he said, can spot a fake beard at 50 paces. But Ryan is careful when he has to work private parties, because after adults have been drinking for 90 minutes straight, they tend to tug his beard a little too hard. "It can get pretty raucous," Ryan said, who likes to leave long before such tomfoolery begins. It is an occupational hazard of sorts that these real-bearded men have the appearance of Santa year-round. They told stories of being able to stop a child in mid-tantrum in an aisle of a grocery store. All it took was a look and a threat of a stocking full of coal. Such episodes, the Santas said, are usually followed by a grateful "Thank you, Santa," from the child's stressed out mom or dad. With such high visibility, a certain amount of decorum is required even in the middle of July, Connaghan warned them. "Whatever you do is seen and is the image of Santa, so if you're out there scratching yourself or just leaning up against a wall, people see that, whether it's December or March," Connaghan said. "If you're going around like Bubba with cleavage showing out the back of your pants, that's not Santa." The roomful of jolly old elves chuckled and nodded in agreement. |
