Their black boots have been hitting the streets for the last few days. They’ve been appearing a few at a time in familiar old haunts. By now though, there aren’t enough shopping malls, Christmas tree farms, book or toy stores to contain these annual visitors.
No, sir. With a scant four weeks until Christmas, it’s almost as if battalions of them have been airlifted from some North Pole Santa Cloning Station, then parachuted to earth only to be found at every parade, pageant, play and party in the country. No wonder “he” knows whether you’re naughty or nice-wherever you are this time of year his helpers seem to be only a few feet away.
We’re talking Kriss Kringle here. Santa Claus. St. Nicholas. Father Christmas. St. Nick. The Jolly Old Elf. The Flying Sleigh Driver. The Fat Man. The North Pole’s Most Famous Resident.
No one knows how many there are, but what family doesn’t have a brother/father/uncle who can carry off a credible Christmas Eve Kriss Kringle before the wondering eyes of children? To say nothing of the photogenic St. Nicks at every shopping mall? Then there are the members of the black kettle crew found on street corners throughout each community. And what about Mrs. Claus?
Margaret Diebel of Wood Dale loves to play the liberated Mrs. Claus, sans Santa. She’s so hooked by the Claus-mystique that she owns her own personal Santa suit as well. If a request comes in for the full North Pole duo, she simply recruits a Santa stand-in.
From Santas at schoolhouse holiday pageants to Mrs. Claus passing out punch at company Christmas parties, area Kringle wannabes say the appeal of giving and being loved is irresistible. It’s easy, they say, to get caught up in a yule tidal wave of goodwill.
Will the real Santa Claus please stand up?
Carl Bassett of Wood Dale measures up to about 6 feet 1 inch and has been mistaken for ex-Chicago Bears defensive lineman Steve McMichael. Yet he is one of the many who manages to convince Santa-struck small fry that he is a jolly old elf.
Jolly is easy. The 47-year-old Lutheran minister confesses to being “a happy person by nature.” Old comes with the snowy white wig and beard. But a 6-foot-1-inch elf?
“There is something about just putting on the suit that creates the familiar image,” Bassett says. “It works every time. I don’t know what it is, but the suit really helps.” He says the “Ho! Ho! Ho!” is somehow deeper and more heartfelt coming from behind that red velveteen jacket.
This truly is a magical season.
Speaking of red velveteen jackets: Keeping Santas dressed in red-and-white finery is a year-round business for Northfield-based Santa’s Best, a kind-of Santa Claus tailor. Santa suits comprise about one-sixth of the company’s business, according to president Ed Ruff.
Santa’s Best, which Ruff characterizes as one of the largest Christmas accessory companies in the country, sells Santa Claus suits ranging in price from $25 to $200 to such major retail stores as Walmart, Sears and J.C. Penney Besides the suits they sell Santa hats (“our most popular item,” he says), gloves, beards, belts and all other fashion of Christmas bells and reindeer whistles. But Ruff won’t divulge so much as a hint about how much they sell.
All Ruff will say is that business is so good that annual sales of Santa Claus-related paraphernalia are up 250 percent in 1994. Up from what, he won’t reveal.
Ruff insists secrecy is essential to the sustained success of his seasonal business. He says the Christmas accessories business is so highly competitive that any revelations about sales volume whether in dollars or number of suits would only serve to benefit industry rivals. “And why should I do that?,” he asks.
Bassett’s assertions about the red and white Santa suit notwithstanding, can it really be true that it takes only clothes (and maybe a pillow) to make anybody into the Fat Man?
Not so, says Bloomingdale’s Nick Christoforakis. His regular day job is as general manager of food service at the K mart in Bloomingdale. This 40-year-old father of four has been enchanted by the jolly old elf ever since the late ’70s when he stumbled across the former home and onetime Santa museum of the late Charles W. Howard in Albion, N.Y.
Howard was Macy’s parade Santa for over 20 years during the 1940s and 1950s, according to Christoforakis. He established a Santa school and museum in Albion, west of Rochester, upon his retirement. Christoforakis visited Howard’s former Albion home and felt his own fate was immediately sealed. He must be involved with training people to carry on the noble legend of St. Nicholas.
“Santa Claus is a legend-a champion of children and the needy world over,” Christoforakis says. “He represents the best in all of us, giving us reason to celebrate the love and compassion that we are capable of displaying towards each other all year-round. The legend must never perish-it must live on.”.
To achieve that lofty goal Christoforakis this year established his own school. On November 5, 1994, in the lower level of the Bloomingdale Public Library, Christoforakis and Matt Ungaro of Skokie passed out a dozen diplomas to the first graduates of the St. Nicholas Christmas Workshop.
The workshop was two days of intensive study that began with the origin, history and evolution of the Santa Claus we have come to know. Christmas legends and folklore, as well as the holiday’s music, customs and traditions also were covered, Christoforakis said. Lessons were imparted via video tape, lecture and stories.
The science and mechanics of Santa Claus took up a portion of the first day’s curriculum. Every detail was covered-from wig, mustache and beard (yak hair is the best, says Christoforakis) to comfortable boots. In between, they talked belts, gloves, breath and make-up.
Pleasant breath is important, says Barb Chotner of B&B Promotions of Northbrook. Chotner has the happy annual responsibility of hiring nearly 50 Santas who will pull seasonal duty at eight area shopping malls including Oak Brook and Fox Valley, she says.
“Children are outspoken,” Chotner notes. They have no reservations about pointing out if Santa has a less-than-delicate personal hygiene problem. So, aside from obvious reasons of personal habits, Chotner looks for Santas who don’t smoke or drink.
Chotner has five years of experience hiring mall Santas. She notes other attributes desirable in an applicant include an even temperament, a willingness to please and, of course, the prospective Santa must love children. Chotner’s Santas are ages 18 to 68.
“For some this is a second, after-hours, job. It’s a way to make a little extra Christmas money. Others are retired and just enjoy being out and with children. Still others have seasonal jobs that end in the fall,” Chotner says. One of her regular Santas works spring through fall in an apple orchard.
Rick Berg of Oak Lawn, a four-year veteran working for B&B, is general manager of an Atlanta Braves rookie team that plays out of West Palm Beach, Fla. The Santa salary, he says, is pretty good, especially with some experience. The pay ranges from about $6 to $10 per hour, he says.
Christoforakis notes that many Santas who perform at private parties and such can make upwards of $100 per hour. Many though, spend so much time volunteering to appear at charity functions they make little, if any, money, he says.
That is the appeal for Christoforakis. From the moment of his first tentative trip to a school for mentally retarded children in Chicago in 1979, Christoforakis was Santa-smitten.
“I just looked in the phone book and picked a school at random,” Christoforakis recalls. The former tough-guy Green Beret who put in a tour of duty in Vietnam went all sentimental at the memories conjured by repeating his story.
“I called and told the principal I wanted to come and give the kids a little something,” Christoforakis says. “Getting a gig was the hardest thing back then. People were suspicious. They thought I wanted something,” he says.
“I just wanted-just to do it. Just like that,” says Christoforakis. And so he did.
He took candy canes and some small, inexpensive toys that were donated to him and visited the LaPaz Child Development Center on Roosevelt Road in Chicago. Christoforakis still keeps their letters and the letters of other children’s charities (including the Ray Graham Association for the Handicapped in Elmhurst) thanking him for his visits.
“The feeling was overwhelming,” Christoforakis said. Afterward, sitting in the prinicpal’s office in red velvet pants, T-shirt and suspenders, he recalled how the woman registered surprise when all he requested for his afternoon’s labors was a glass of lemonade.
“You go and you never know what you’re going to encounter,” Christoforakis says, sounding like he’d seen it all over the last 15 years.
“It’s advisable to have a number of suits to fit a lot of different occasions,” Christoforakis says.
Chotner said B&B Promotions provides all its Santas with the uniform-of-the-day for purposes of dry cleaning and photo similarity.
Christoforakis owns several outfits, including one $400 beard and a suit with real rabbit fur cuffs. It is not unheard of for a Santa to have more than $1,000 invested in his costume, he says.
Less expensive, but never wash-and-wear, suits are best for situations where children might get, well, nervous, according to Christoforakis.
Often, Santa must behave in a pretty laid-back manner in order to avoid frightening already-anxious children, says Ungaro, who gave the seminar with Christoforakis. “If they’re afraid, you have to act almost like you don’t care if they come on your lap at all. Let your elves deal with them,” is Ungaro’s advice.
Santa psychology was also a topic of Christoforakis’ workshop. A ’90s Santa must know how to hold a child properly-to avoid any perception of behavior that might cause legal action by a parent, says Ungaro. Also, the Old Elf must learn how to deal with frightened kids, cocky kids who would pull your beard (“You can spot ’em pretty easily. Then just hold tight under your beard with one hand,” counsels Christoforakis), and kids going through serious emotional situations.
“Those are the hardest,” says Berg of Oak Lawn.
All of Santa’s helpers echoed similar thoughts. It would seem that asking children what they want can be a sobering experience. Besides ponies and ant farms, they will ask Santa to bring back deceased siblings, reunite divorced parents or find a job for daddy.
Christoforakis says his workshop is modeled after one that used to be offered by Phil Wrenz when he was St. Nick for Santa’s Village. Wrenz, says Christoforakis, has retired to Houston, where he may start another Santa school. The only other such school Christoforakis knows of is located in Midland, Mich. He is an alumnus of both.
According to Christoforakis there can never be too many Kriss Kringles. There are a lot of children’s wishes to hear. There is a mighty need for good cheer. The real Santa needs all the help he can get.
But you better watch out. Right now they are simple to spot, but come Dec. 26, those red-and-white suits get packed away.
It makes it all the easier for his helpers to spy on who’s being bad or good.
