Courtesy of Jim Manning
Not everyone can play Santa Claus for a living.
Sure, anyone can don a Santa hat, beard, and suit and invite parents to plop kids on their lap.
But to play a convincing Santa Claus that kids will forever cherish, and to make a living at it, you must become Santa Claus — and that process takes a lot of work.
For Jim Manning, a full-time children’s entertainer who has played Santa Jim in the Boston area for 14 years, learning how to become the perfect Father Christmas meant attending a couple of Santa Claus schools, picking up tricks of the trade from other Santas, and learning the nuances of the job through trial and error.
When he’s not making appearances at holiday parties dressed as the man in red or the guest of honor at the City of Boston Tree Lighting celebration, he keeps his skills sharp 11 months of the year as “Jungle Jim” of Jungle Jim’s of Boston.
This professional Santa understands the value of a top-notch beard — no straggly, wispy nonsense or anything that could easily get pulled off — and knows that keeping kids happy requires getting on their level.
And perhaps most importantly, to truly transform yourself into the magical elf, Manning tells Business Insider that you have to really love kids — and believe that it’s your job to be a beacon of hope and joy to them no matter what.
Below, Manning shares his personal journey of being a professional Santa Claus:
What exactly does a pro Santa do?
I’ve been a professional private-events Santa Claus for 13 years. Generally, there are two kinds of Santas — mall Santas and private-event Santas. Mall Santas tend to be older gentlemen — you get to sit in the mall, you might get the photo, and that’s that.
But mostly what I do is corporate and private events. I’m the official Santa Claus for the city of Boston’s tree lighting, so I do the tree lighting on TV. I was on the cover of the Red Sox Christmas card this year. Most of my work is generally one-hour visits in people’s homes, corporate office parties, and they’ll have kids there, and sometimes it’s just adults.
And I’m a younger Santa — I’m only 40 — and I’m very high-energy, so I tend to put on a little bit of a show: The Night Before Christmas, and caroling, and magic. A lot of people think being Santa Claus means just showing up, sitting on the couch, and letting kids sit in your lap. But what I do is a lot more.
What does your busy season look like?
The busy season is December, Thanksgiving to Christmas. We start receiving calls and emails in August to book events. Some people will book from the year before. But the real majority of the requests start coming in October and November. And a lot of last-minute requests come in too. The real season starts to ramp up after Thanksgiving.
The first week of December is more promotional work — a lot of photo shoots. I did a photo shoot for Legal Sea Foods, where they had me as Santa Claus taking photos of their clam chowder or their lobster. Drug stores, car dealerships — they’ll bring me in to set the tone for the season and whatnot.
Then toward the middle of December, that’s when I start getting into more corporate parties, private parties. And then as we get closer to Christmas Eve, the majority of my events are parties in people’s homes.
Christmas Eve is the busiest day. I’ll do 10 appearances. This year, my first visit is at 11 a.m. and my last visit is scheduled for 9 p.m.
Most weekdays are two to three visits. Weekends are much busier. Sunday I did eight different visits. I’ll have five or six days off somewhere in between Thanksgiving and Christmas.
Courtesy of Jim Manning
How does it compare to what you do for the rest of the year?
December is the busiest month for my business. We will bring in about 30% of our income for Santa Boston/Jungle Jim’s, my children’s-entertainment business, during this time. For the rest of the year I’m doing balloon magic shows as Jungle Jim.
During the summer, as Jungle Jim, I’ll do 150 performances, most in libraries.
The good thing about being Santa is I don’t have as much prep work before an event. It takes me about a half-hour to get into the suit, but then I show up and I am Santa. Whereas with the magic shows and everything, they involve a lot of set up and prep work.
That being said, we devote a lot of man-hours in preparation for December. Pretty much October through December, I’d say 75% of our energy is devoted toward Santa Claus.
See the rest of the story at Business Insider
