It’s going to be a unique Christmas this year, and Santa Claus is adjusting accordingly.
Professional Santas across the United States have shifted their holiday work season to accommodate the Covid-19 restrictions that have held 2020 in their grip. Some still greet children in stores, from behind Plexiglass or in an enclosed snow globe.
But many Clauses have had to personally come up with pandemic-fitted solutions, or risk losing a whole season of earnings. And often those bearded bearers of Christmas joy have relied on what we all have in past months: Zoom calls.
Stephen Arnold, the president of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, a non-profit professional group, has been dressing as Santa Claus for decades, setting up at department stores, malls, and other businesses while kids waited in line for hours to talk to him. This year, he found himself suiting up to sit behind a camera.
“This has been a tough year,” Arnold said. “I find myself having to tell children, ‘I know Covid has not been fun to deal with, but Santa is staying safe, and even though we have to talk over video, I will still be coming down the chimney in person this year.’”
Arnold said at least 25% of International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas members simply sat this season out, unwilling or unable to hone the technical skills required to set up and carry out video appointments with kids.
Others have been recruited by existing digital Santa visit services – a handful of which existed before the pandemic made “Zoom” a ubiquitous verb.
WelcomeSanta is one such company. Founded in 2018, it employs “top Santas” for video calls. For $25, up to three children can speak with Santa during a five- to eight-minute time slot. Calls are up 75% in 2020, according to a spokesman there.
“Santa Chuck”, a professional Santa who contracts with WelcomeSanta, used to do primarily in-person Santa gigs. He said what the video visits lacked in physical intimacy they made up in length and details provided in advance from parents.
When Chuck the Santa spoke with eight-year-old Hannah earlier this month, for example, he didn’t have to ask what she wanted for Christmas – he already knew. He also knew the name of her dogs, that she was learning French in school, what her favorite toy from the year before was called, and that she had just lost a tooth.
“Did you get my card?” she asked over video chat.
“My elves showed me here in the workshop!” he replied, in full Santa regalia. Unlike a 30-second chat before a quick photo, a video call allows Santa to better connect with the child, said Fred Lueck, spokesman for WelcomeSanta.
“Our goal is to leverage technology to awaken the magic of Christmas,” he said.
The space has seen an influx of such services, with several new companies introducing Santa video chats in 2020. But video chats aren’t the only digital alternative to in-person visits. For the first time in nearly 160 years, Santa’s visit to Macy’s department store in New York City’s Herald Square is virtual. Since 27 November, it has allowed families to visit Santa on its website and digitally place a Santa into photos.
Other apps, such as ImagineAR, use augmented reality to put Santa in your home. The app Enchant Santa Calls uses 3D technology to allow a parent to virtually pose as Santa in a video chat with kids. SaveChristmas.com will sell you a downloadable image of your family photoshopped into a scene with Santa for $175 or a set of 100 Christmas cards featuring the photo for $285. A 15-minute private Zoom call with Santa will run you $97.
‘A specific vision of Santa’
In addition to being more personalized, digital visits from Santa can be more accessible. WelcomeSanta offers a Spanish-language website as well as a Spanish-speaking Santa, or Papa Noel. Macy’s lets users pick an experience that includes “specific vision of what Santa looks like” based on cultural background.
Arnold said the digital version of visits also allowed him to meet children in spaces that would have been previously difficult to access, including hospitals with immunocompromised kids or remote locations abroad.
“Some hospitals are now passing out iPads to children to allow them to see Santa safely,” he said. “This is a huge opportunity to bring Christmas to more people.”
The digital schedule for Santa can be grueling, say the professionals. Arnold said he had made 24 visits in a row over the course of four hours with no break. Chuck said during the peak holiday rush he was doing six calls an hour, back to back.
Though these times are unprecedented, many Santas had already had a plan for a Christmas like this, said Ric Erwin, a professional Santa and the chairman of the board for the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, another non-profit group for Christmas professionals.
He said his organization had begun to advise members in March to cancel in-person visits and to follow guidelines set up during the H1N1 outbreak of 2009. “This isn’t our first time in the game,” he said.
Erwin and others lobbied the government to reclassify Santas as a frontline position to push them to the front of the line for a vaccine in time for Christmas. But the timeline did not go as expected.
“We realized it was all on our shoulders, and we began to lean into alternative presentation techniques,” Erwin said. “Virtual visitation isn’t really new, but the creativity this year has just been staggering.”
Those changes were likely to stick around years after Covid-19’s shutdowns, said Arnold.
“People have asked if this rise in digital is just a fluke and whether digital visits will disappear, but I don’t think so,” he said. “It might be different than it used to be but you always remember your visits with Santa.”
