Santa's workshops
At the Santa convention, jolly ones prepping for the part are schooled in everything from beard and wardrobe basics to ethics and economics. For one St. Petersburg man, suiting up offers a new beginning.
By S.I. ROSENBAUM
Published July 23, 2006
BRANSON, Mo. — At 5 a.m., Jim Trubey leans toward the bathroom mirror, working white clown makeup into his beard with a toothbrush. The fluorescent light makes his face look pale and worried, not jolly at all.
"I hear bells in the hallway," says his wife, Jill, who has traveled with him from their home in St. Petersburg. Jill opens the door of their hotel room. Sure enough, jingling echoes through the fourth-floor corridor.
Jim, 59, keeps his eyes on the mirror. His beard is now the color of new-fallen snow. But he's examining his temples, where his hair is obstinately dark.
"Did I get those places enough?" he asks Jill.
Jim puts on the red velvet pants and the red velvet coat. He sits down on the bed to pull on his boots, spit-polished the way he learned in the Coast Guard. He loops a wide leather belt around his middle.
"All right," he says. "We're sweating."
It's July. The day will only get hotter.
Jill dabs rouge onto Jim's cheeks and nose. She reaches up and fits the red hat onto his head, like a crown. Then she feeds him a mint.
"I'm Santa," Jim says.
* * n
Leaving his room, Jim falls into step with two other men, both also dressed in red, both with white beards.
There are more Santas in the elevator. Still more in the Radisson lobby.
Outside, in the Missouri dawn, more than a hundred of them are standing around in their red suits and red hats: tall Santas, fat Santas,
old Santas, young Santas, cowboy Santas, medieval Santas, frontier Santas.
They have journeyed from all over the continent to attend the first convention of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. There are nearly 300 members here. On average, they are 59.6 years old, weigh 256 pounds and have been married for 24.2 years. And of course, they all have real beards - a requirement.
In the next three days, they will award an honorary membership to comedian Yakov Smirnoff. They will march in a parade and strain in a Santa-on-Santa tug of war. They will shop for carved wooden staffs, giant brass belt buckles, elf slippers, some concoction marketed as Santa cologne.
In the most serious business of the weekend, they will attend workshops such as "Santa and the Media," "Santa's Basic Wardrobe and How to Care for It," "Dealing with Special Needs Children," "You Are an Artist - Act & Think Like One," and "There Is More to It Than Just Sitting in a Chair!"
What has brought them, a host of grown men, to this - to a hotel in Branson in the middle of July? What called them to the red suit and the beard?
For Jim, the answer started in a VA hospital room in 1958, when he was 11 years old.
"It's never too late," he says, "to have a happy childhood."
It has taken three buses four trips to carry all the Santas from the Radisson to a nearby outdoor mall, where they will have their opening parade.
At 6 a.m., they still have an hour to kill. They mill around, kibitzing. They eye each other's outfits and beards. Elvis shows up, looking for a photo op. Some local showgirls arrive, dressed as sexy snowflakes. Jim Trubey, waiting with the rest of the Santas, keeps his eyes front and center. Santa's thoughts must remain pure. No checking out the snowflakes' legs.
Finally, the parade starts. The Santas sing Jingle Bells over and over as they march three abreast between the shops. The front of the parade is singing in a slightly different key from the back. Their marching, however, is pretty good. Many Santas are ex-military.
Branson tourists and locals watch, stunned and delighted.
At the end of the parade, the Santas crowd into a cul-de-sac. They're packed belly to belly. The sound of them all, ho-ho-hoing in unison, is like a wave breaking on a rock.
Jim stands toward the back, lost in a sea of red.
When he was 11, alcoholism took Jim's father to a room at Bay Pines VA Medical Center. Nine days later he was dead.
Jim doesn't remember much about the funeral, except that his grandfather took him to buy new shoes before the ceremony.
His father's drinking and early death made Jim a serious boy. After high school he joined the Coast Guard, and became a serious man. "A big mean old sergeant," he says.
"I was the one who would walk up and say, 'Son, you need to get a haircut. And I don't mean just one.' "
He met Jill at a party one night while on leave. They got married and had two daughters. Looking back, Jim admits that he didn't know how to be a father.
At home he was distant. He treated his girls like they were his subordinates in the Coast Guard. He didn't know how to play with them. No one had ever taught him.
Back at the Radisson, the Santas change from the full red regalia into casual Santa wear: red T-shirts, red overalls, red-and-white-striped stockings, red Dickies shorts, red and white Hawaiian shirts, red Doc Martens.
Time for the workshops. Jim is leaving a marketing session when another Santa approaches in the hall. He wants to know if Jim is wearing any rouge.
Jim says yes.
The Santa reaches into his pocket and pulls out a case of Wet & Wild Heather Silk. "What I use is this stuff right here," he says.
"Okay," Jim says.
"Hey," the other Santa says, "it works for me. I can't find a shade I like in another brand."
Surrounded by more experienced Santas, Jim is a little intimidated. Compared to them, he's an amateur. He has only one Christmas under his big black belt.
He was working in sales for a tech company. Growing out his beard was his little way of sticking it to corporate. People told him he looked like a street person. Then, one night, his granddaughter Edie told him he looked like Santa.
Wow, he thought. Maybe so.
He hired a seamstress to sew him a custom velvet suit. He tried on the suit and discovered a gift for jolliness. He felt free. As Christmas loomed, he found Santa jobs at schools and private parties.
The work was exhausting. Sometimes he performed at four parties a night. But he loved it, especially when parents and teachers told him about the difference he made to their children.
Then, in February, he lost his job at the tech company. Downsized. He started to think about making a living from Santa.
That's why he's spending the weekend in Branson, among the professionals. He wants to network, make connections, get discovered. He has visions of acting in television commercials, modeling for print advertising. He's even contemplating a gig as a mall Santa.
His resume reads:
Jolly Demeanor
Warm, Twinkling Eyes
Communicates well with a diverse population
Mature, compassionate, dependable and responsible individual
Professionally educated in the Santa craft.
Jill Trubey has been watching the other wives.
Some of them act like press agents, chatting up reporters on their husbands' behalf. Others get in on the Santa act themselves, dressing up as Mrs. Claus in cute little red pinafores and aprons.
Jill is an intelligent, pragmatic woman, easily as tall as Jim. She doesn't do cute.
She has followed her husband willingly into this world, but she's not sure there will ever be a time when she'll be dressing in pinafores. Some lines she's not willing to cross.
It's not always easy being married to the red suit. For the wives, the convention offers a special workshop: "Dealing With the Male Peacock: How to Live With Santa."
Jill plans to hit that one, scheduled for later in the day. Right now she's sitting in the third row at a session titled "Santa Ethics." Around her, Santas are discussing the special responsibilities of the calling.
"How many out of a thousand people do what you do?" the workshop leader asks. "I think the creator has given you something special."
"We have opportunities as Santas that we cannot get any other way," says a Santa wearing a Santa cap adorned by the St. Louis Cardinals logo. "I can walk up to a child and talk about Christmas love, any time of the year. If I tried that without the beard, I'd be in jail!"
The presenter hands them a hardball question: What do they think about letting gay teens or adults sit in Santa's lap for a picture?
A pause, then the Santas start calling out.
"What's the issue?"
"We're all God's children."
"That's one of God's tests," says a Santa holding a carved staff. "I don't like it personally, but it's Christmas and they're just like any other kids."
The Santa with the St. Louis Cardinals cap pipes up with another scenario: "I had a father and son come in wanting a picture with Santa with Klan hats on."
On this, the Santas are divided.
Santa is about love, one says. "If you have someone with a Klan hat in there, that's not love. That's hate. Santa doesn't have to be associated with that."
Someone else says the mall manager should handle the situation.
"Santa stays above it."
Another Santa says it would be a little like posing with someone in a Cleveland Browns hat, if you're not a Browns fan.
Jill covers her face in her hands.
"I'm glad I don't have to wear a red suit," she mutters.
The next day, the Santas pack into the hotel's largest meeting room for a panel discussion with executives from the five biggest companies that hire Santas for mall appearances.
Jeff Angelo of Sepia Photos says that kids can be scared of Santa. "We tell children to stay away from guys who look like you for most of the year."
All five companies say they do background checks on every Santa. Sometimes they also drug-test Santa.
"Guys, you are very vulnerable out there," says Rick Eggesiecker of Santa Plus. "Let's all be good Santas."
Santas are paid about $10 an hour. They generally get two 45-minute breaks, for lunch and dinner, as well as two 15-minute breaks to "feed the reindeer."
"We don't provide Santa with bathroom breaks," Angelo says jokingly. "We ask that you strap a little johnny to your leg so we can continue to take photos as long as possible."
Jim, sitting with Jill in the rows of folding chairs, doesn't like what he's hearing. He almost wants to walk out.
"It's slave labor," he says later.
Being trapped for 12 hours in a mall no longer sounds appealing. He hates the idea of having only a few minutes to talk to a child, the way mall Santas do.
Jim thinks the mall-Santa executives don't have enough respect for the Santas they employ. The mall Santa, he says, is the rock of the industry. They're the ones who make it happen.
Yet for all the hard work, he says, they're paid a fraction of the profit. Most Santas make a few thousand dollars every season. The successful mall Santas might pull in closer to $10,000.
As the execs keep talking, a certain restlessness takes hold in the audience. In the back of the room, some of the Santas have started to murmur about banding together against the Man.
Unionize! someone calls out.
Jill, taking it all in, doesn't care for what the mall execs are saying any more than Jim does. Maybe the two of them should steer clear of malls.
In her husband's notebook, Jill writes, I like parties!
Jim glances down, then meets her eye and nods.
His daughters are grown now. He's not sure what they think about his transformation into Santa.
He's tried to talk with them about the mistakes he made when they were young, the way he couldn't open up, how he held back. But they haven't wanted to discuss it.
"I made my amends," he says. "But they haven't necessarily been received."
The benediction he receives is from other people's children. At private parties and at schools, at Salvation Army missions and Girl Scout meetings, they look at him with wide eyes.
They've suspended their disbelief, and it makes it easier for him to do the same. He gets down on the floor, he puts his face level with theirs. He plays.
There are a lot of things that changed Jim: therapy; Jill's bout with cancer; raising his granddaughter; the red velvet suit.
He used to be an unhappy person. Now he sleeps soundly at night. He used to wear only black, gray and navy blue. Now Jill loves dressing him in red.
It's the last evening of the convention. The Santas change into formalwear and pile back onto the buses. Jim is resplendent in a white satin vest and red shirt. Jill wears a red beaded pantsuit.
The buses carry the Santas to a riverboat - the Branson Belle - where they'll enjoy dinner, a musical revue, a pair of Russian acrobats and a talking dog act.
Over salad, the emcee tries to warm up the crowd.
"How many confused children are here?" he asks, going for a laugh.
Some wise-acre Santas raise their hands.
"I'm not talking mental age here," the emcee says.
The Santas boom. Jim laughs with them.
His eyes crinkle up at the corners, his cheeks get rosy. His belly shakes, not exactly like a bowl full of jelly, but close enough.
Then he looks over at Jill and grins.
"Never too late to have a happy one," he says.
S.I. Rosenbaum can be reached at srosenbaum@sptimes.com.