Each year at Christmas I make enough to pay my Magic Castle dues by doing celebrity appearances. I am not a celebrity, but when I put on the red suit and the beard, I become the biggest celebrity in the world. Everyone loves Santa Claus.
Those are big shoes and a big belly to fill, so I have to wear a fat suit. With all the layers I have to put on over the fat suit, it can get a bit warm, especially here in Los Angeles where it can and has been nearly 100 degrees right before Christmas, and we are talking Fahrenheit, not Celsius. This year was an especially cold Christmas, so I was glad to have all the layers.
My wife, who is also a magician and entertainer, becomes Mrs. Claus and joins me as we do our visits. Actually, she runs the whole show and I just go along. We did Santa visits for a private school. The first day was for the second graders, and the second day was for the kindergartners. They are so developmentally different. For the younger crowd, my Santa speaks more softly and gently. He is a bit more boisterous for the older kids.
I do not have kids sit on my lap and tell me what they want for Christmas. We tried that when we first started doing this, but having to deal with kids asking for Santa to bring them back their father (more than once, and I never knew whether he was dead, in the military, or separated from the mom) was too much for me. Besides, that is for my mall Santa helpers. Many of the kids explained to me that they knew that the Santas they see at the mall are just helpers dressing up like me, and that they knew I was the real Santa.
This year was much better than last year. In the picture below from last year is Belle as Mrs. Claus in our green screen studio. We had to do all the Santa visits via Zoom. It was not nearly as fun and much less profitable.
I actually am a very good Santa. I take it very seriously, as this is something that kids will remember all of their lives. I have had a lot of training as an actor, and I try to use those skills to create as authentic a Santa as I can. Belle and I have worked hard to make sure we both know our Santa lore and are on the same page. I have a great Santa voice that sounds like you imagine Santa might sound. I am proud of my work, even though I have tremendous anxiety beforehand. My medical condition makes it difficult to know what shape I will be in on any given day, but I think we have things worked out well enough that Belle can cover if I am struggling.
One of the things we do is let the kids and adults ask Santa and Mrs. Claus questions. The older kids, beginning to doubt the reality of Santa, sometimes ask more challenging questions. This is not a problem, as it is inconceivable to my character that anyone could not know that I was the real Santa as I was standing right in front of them. One kid asked “What did you get me for Christmas last year?” and I replied “Santa gives out millions of toys so I don’t remember them all, but if you want, I can contact Binkie in distribution and get back to you.”
On Christmas Eve we did several Santa visits, and this is more of a family affair where adults are also involved. I have a rather spectacular and very theatrical beard, and one adult asked me “Were you born with that beard?” Since I noted that he also had a beard, although less magnificent in appearance, I replied “Were you?” And that is basically what it is- improv doing a character you know really well.
By this time my brother’s luggage had arrived. Christmas Eve we drove around an hour out of our way to make a special Santa delivery. We arrived around 12:30 in the morning. We have this amazing set of sleigh bells that provide a sound that, when we ring them right before a Santa entrance, you can hear all the kids gasp and shout “Santa!” just from the sound.
We rang them outside of the window of the room I assumed my mother had put him up in. We rang them some more. We probably rang them for around ten minutes, to no response. We stopped whispering and talked louder.
From my brother’s perspective, there had been a loud party next door most of the evening. He assumed that drunken idiots from the party had wandered onto the property. He just tried to ignore it all. Eventually, he looked out the window.
His CPAP machine had been in his lost luggage, so for Christmas we brought him the gift a good night’s sleep. We visited for a few minutes with him and then left for the 90 minute drive home. We were quite exhausted at the end of the night.
Right after Christmas the covid numbers really started to rise. We canceled all of the upcoming shows (Belle had a few for New Years Eve and day). She won’t be doing any more until the numbers come down to a safer level, which probably won’t be until mid-March. This makes it insanely difficult to make money as a live entertainer or even to plan very far ahead.
Between the Christmas shows and prep and helping my mother get through the loss of her husband and all the logistics that need to be dealt with, I have had little time to really focus on the novel. As a disciplined writer, though, I have been focusing on another book project (non-fiction) that is surprisingly close to completion. It is a sequel, and the first one took over a decade to write. This has been going very quickly and I can see having it done by May if I can keep up this pace.
By my next entry I hope I have something to say about the novel and what I am doing with it. I am quite anxious to get back to working on it.