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It’s going to be a unique Christmas this year and Santa Claus is adjusting accordingly.
Professional Santas in the United States have changed their holiday work season to accommodate the Covid-19 restrictions that have kept 2020 under their control. Some still greet children in stores, behind Plexiglas, or in a closed snowball.
But many Clauses have had to personally come up with tailored solutions to the pandemic or risk losing an entire earnings season. And often, those bearded bearers of holiday cheer have relied on what we’ve all had in recent months: Zoom calls.
Stephen Arnold, the President of the International Brotherhood of Royal Bearded Santa Claus, a non-profit professional group, has been dressing up as Santa Claus for decades, settling in department stores, shopping malls and other businesses while children waited in line for hours to talk to he. This year, he found himself preparing to sit behind a camera.
“This has been a difficult year,” Arnold said. “I find myself having to tell the kids, ‘I know it hasn’t been fun dealing with Covid, but Santa is staying safe, and even though we have to talk on video, I’ll still be coming down the chimney in person this year. ‘”
Arnold said that at least 25% of the members of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas just sat down this season, inadvertently or unable to hone the technical skills necessary for scheduling and video dating with children.
Others have been hired by Santa’s digital visitation services, some of which existed before the pandemic made “Zoom” a ubiquitous verb.
WelcomeSanta is one of those companies. Founded in 2018, it employs the “best Santas” for video calls. For $ 25, up to three kids can talk to Santa during a five to eight minute time slot. Calls increased 75% in 2020, according to a spokesperson there.
“Santa Chuck”, a professional Santa who has a contract with WelcomeSanta, used to do mainly Santa Claus concerts in person. He said that what the video visits lacked in terms of physical intimacy they made up in length and detail provided in advance by parents.
When Chuck the Santa spoke to eight-year-old Hannah earlier this month, for example, he didn’t have to ask her what she wanted for Christmas, she already knew. He also knew the names of his dogs, that he was learning French at school, what his favorite toy was called from the previous year, and that he had just lost a tooth.
“Did you get my card?” he asked by video chat.
“My elves showed me here in the workshop!” He replied, in all of Santa’s outfit. Unlike a 30-second chat before a quick photo, a video call allows Santa to better connect with the child, said Fred Lueck, a spokesman for WelcomeSanta.
“Our goal is to harness 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 are not 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 November 27, it has allowed families to visit Santa Claus on its website and digitally place it in photos.
Other apps, like ImagineAR, use augmented reality to put Santa in your home. The Enchant Santa Calls app uses 3D technology to allow a parent to virtually pose as Santa in a video chat with children. SaveChristmas.com will sell you a downloadable Photoshopped image of your family in a scene with Santa for $ 175 or a set of 100 Christmas cards with the photo for $ 285. A 15 minute Zoom private call with Santa will cost you $ 97 .
‘A specific vision of Santa’
In addition to being more personalized, Santa’s digital visits can be more accessible. WelcomeSanta offers a website in Spanish, as well as a Spanish-speaking Santa Claus or Father Christmas. Macy’s allows users to choose an experience that includes “a specific view of what Santa looks like” based on cultural background.
Arnold said the digital version of the visits also allowed him to meet children in spaces that would have previously been difficult to access, including hospitals with immunosuppressed children or remote locations abroad.
“Some hospitals are now distributing iPads to children so they can see Santa safely,” he said. “This is a great opportunity to bring Christmas to more people.”
Santa’s digital schedule can be exhausting, professionals say. Arnold said he had made 24 visits in a row over the course of four hours without a break. Chuck said that during peak holiday season he was making six calls an hour, in a row.
Although these times are unprecedented, many Santa Claus had already had a plan for a Christmas like this, said Ric Erwin, a professional Santa Claus and chairman of the board of the Fraternal Order of Royal Bearded Santa Claus, another non-profit group. for Christmas professionals.
He said his organization had started advising members in March to cancel in-person visits and to follow the guidelines established during the 2009 H1N1 outbreak. “This is not our first time in the game,” he said.
Erwin and others lobbied the government to reclassify Santas as a front-line position to push them to the front of the line for a vaccine in time for Christmas. But the timeline was not as expected.
“We realized that it was all on our shoulders and we began to shift toward alternative presentation techniques,” Erwin said. “Virtual tours aren’t really new, but the creativity this year has been amazing.”
Those changes are likely to hold for years after the Covid-19 shutdowns, Arnold said.
“People have wondered if this increase in digital is just a fluke and if digital visits will disappear, but I don’t think so,” he said. “It may be different than it used to be, but you always remember your visits to Santa.”
