Assorted Conversations

Ep. 47 - The National Santa Conversation with Tim Connaghan

• Helen

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A shaving-cream beard in Vietnam. A department store gig that turned into a calling. A lifetime spent turning belief into service. Meet National Santa, Timothy Conahan, the storyteller and mentor who has trained thousands of Santas and Mrs. Clauses to keep the magic alive long after the tree comes down. We go behind the red suit to unpack the craft: how to read a room in seconds, create photo moments that feel authentic, and handle the questions that break your heart without breaking a child’s hope.

We talk about the real work families rarely see—background checks, insurance, wardrobe care, and the performance skills that make wonder feel effortless. Tim shares why authenticity matters more than ever as visits run longer and kids notice details, and how small moves turn nervous smiles into keepsakes. He also opens the door to a bigger world of Santa: libraries, tree farms, corporate gatherings, hospitals, convalescent homes, and disaster zones where a simple hello can carry a family through a hard season.

As the official Santa for the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots, Tim brings candid stories from parades, TV stages, and relief efforts, including how his team pivoted during COVID to deliver books and games to kids without internet access. We also dig into his holiday planning system that starts in July, designed to protect joy, avoid burnout, and give families back their December. The throughline is clear: compassion is a skill, and wonder is a responsibility.

Listen for practical tips, moving stories, and a fresh sense of what the holidays can be when we lead with heart. If this conversation sparked something for you, follow the show, share it with a friend, and leave a quick review—then visit ToysForTots.org to help a child feel seen this season.

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Tim Connaghan is National Santa

Toys for Tots

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Music Credit: True Living by Patrick Moore

Royalty free music license purchased at soundotcom.com

SPEAKER_01:

Thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. Make sure you hit the subscribe or follow button so you don't miss any of the upcoming episodes. And if you're enjoying the content, please tell a friend about us. Word of mouth recommendations are the most popular way people find new podcasts to listen to. Thanks for spreading the word. And now, here's this week's episode. Merry, happy everything. I truly hope this season of giving finds you making memories and embracing the season's gifts of hope, gratitude, and connection. Just a listener note for today's episode. If you have little believers with an earshot, you may want to pop in your earbuds or listen in another time because I don't want to spoil anything. Okay, this week I got to sit down with the man, the myth, the legend, Santa. I can truly say, Santa, I know him. My guest not only looks and acts the part, but he truly is a heart forgiving, not just on Christmas Eve, but for the entire year. He's graduated close to 6,000 Santa's and Mrs. Clauses through his Santa school, and that's just the tip of the iceberg of inspiring others to create magic and special moments. Take a listen to this week's episode, and I'll see you on the other side. Today's guest truly embodies the spirit of the season all year long. Known nationwide as National Santa, Timothy Conahan is more than just the man in the red suit. He's a storyteller, a joy-bringer, and a living reminder of the power of belief, kindness, and tradition. He's appeared on national television, led major holiday events across the country, and partnered with leading charities to bring Christmas magic to underserved communities. He's also the founder of his own Santa School, where he trains and mentors Santas from around the world, and he's the author of three books dedicated to preserving the true heart and craft of Santa and the holidays. Through countless appearances, heartfelt visits, and community outreach, he has dedicated his life to spreading hope and holiday wonder far beyond the month of December. I am honored to welcome the one and only National Santa himself, Timothy Conahan.

SPEAKER_04:

Ho ho ho ho ho there.

SPEAKER_01:

How are you?

SPEAKER_00:

I am doing wonderful. Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01:

That is fantastic. Now I know this is your busy season, so I truly appreciate you taking the time to have a conversation with little old me.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, well, thank you so much. But I know that it's not just you, it's all those people out there who listen to you, and I get to reach out to them too.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. So, first things first, you are so accomplished. There are so many things that you're involved with in spreading Santa magic, holiday magic, charitable giving, teaching folks the art of being a Santa or a Mrs. Claus. How did this all begin for you? What inspired you to start this journey?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, I think like many times when you talk to an athlete or any performer, a lot of people, we always talk about that a lot of what we do, we we owe to the man above. He has kind of set me on a pathway to doing this. But my first experience being Santa Like was uh in Vietnam, out in the out in the nether regions of uh Vietnam. It was December 23rd, 1969, and all of the uh members of my unit had gone back into the main base camp for a Christmas dinner two days before Christmas, because we were going to be back out in the field on on Christmas Day. So we came back in, and a friend of mine sat down in a folding chair, and he took Barbasol shaving cream and put it on his face, and he and and we all had fun taking pictures with him. Well, after about 15 minutes, that in that humidity, that shaving cream was melting and falling away. So I grabbed the can of shaving cream, put some on, and I traded with him. And so I did that just for fun. But there's a lovely thing about it. You feel a certain warmth, and everybody seems to have some sort of genuine spirit, you know, for the holidays and everything. So that was 1969. A year later, I'm home. I'm going to college. I got a job with a major department store, working before the store opened, 5 a.m. to 9 a.m., vacuuming and cleaning and getting the store ready for customers. And it was at that job, it was Bullock's Department Store in Los Angeles. Bullocks was owned by Macy's.

SPEAKER_03:

Ah.

SPEAKER_00:

And the HR director came to me and knew that I was a communications major. And she said, Can you fill in for three days? Because we we haven't got our Santa yet. And we need someone to fill in from Black Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. And, you know, I said, Oh, okay, you know, it was extra money, you know, and no classes going on. So, okay, I'll do that. And I did that for three days. And on Sunday afternoon, the manager of the store came to me and said, You're good. And would you like to work all season long? And they offered me$3,000. And this of course was back in 1970, and I'm going to college on the GI Bill, you know,$400 a month. And uh so that was, you know, I'm my eyes just you know lit up. So I said, sure, I'd be glad to. And I talked to my teachers and told them I'm gonna miss some classes. But I I ended up being their Santa at the department store for three years.

SPEAKER_04:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Experience. When I graduated and I went off into communications and broadcasting and you know, my dream career that I wanted, I still had a little bit of Santa to do things for friends and family, sometimes for the company I was working for. And so it worked out just wonderfully.

SPEAKER_01:

What moment made you realize that this was more than just a seasonal role?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, again, I started doing this just for friends and family. So for the next 20, 25 years, it was just little things at Christmas that were just for people I knew. In the 1995 or so, there was a TV show around America. Everybody probably remembers this, or some of your listeners remember, Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous with Robin Leach. And Robin would follow celebrities and well-known sports figures and people. He would follow them around for a day and talk about their lifestyle. And it was it was called Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. And he would always talk about champagne wishes and caviar dreams. And he found a Santa in New York. And this was Santa Brady White. Brady was the Santa for Neiman Marcus, ATT, Cartier, a lot of other things. And he followed Brady around. And the the punchline or cut line that made the biggest punch with me and my wife was when he said, and this Santa makes$1,000 a day. That's a really good impression. I got this little pain in my ribs, you know, my side. It was my wife's elbow. And my wife said, You know, honey, when you retire, I'm gonna let you do that. So in the 25 years, though, that I did other work, my work ended up moving from broadcasting to fundraising. And I worked with the Jerry Lewis Musket Industry Telethons as a volunteer, and then ended up getting paid jobs working for the American Cancer Society, the City of Hope Medical Center, and the March of Dimes. And I would coordinate walk-a-thons, testimonial dinners at the Beverly Hills Hotel and Century Plaza, big, big dinners in Los Angeles. You know, dinners at the end of the dinner, we collected$17 million for a research hospital. Really wonderful work. I also got to produce telethons. So I was in broadcasting a little bit. So now we move through all of that to 2000, and I've got the beard growing, and I find out that there's a little club of Santa's in Los Angeles commercial, and they kind of get together one day a year for lunch in January, and I meant them, and I started getting uh job leads. I also, because of my work in the studios, uh, had contacts at NBC and other places. And next thing you know, I'm getting to do the Tonight Show.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

During high school and during my 25 years and with the teleth, I also knew people at the TV stations. One of them was a gentleman named Johnny Grant. Johnny Grant was the honorary mayor of Hollywood. Johnny was also one of Bing Crosby's best friends and was actually the uh Ed Sullivan character in the movie White Christmas, and also a retired brigadier general, I do believe. And he he produced the Hollywood Christmas Parade. So I went to him and said, hey, I belong to a club. We've got all these real bearded Santa's. Maybe you need a real bearded Santa in a parade. And he couldn't do anything immediately, but after three years of talking with him, he asked, would I be the Santa? So I became, as a volunteer, Santa for the Hollywood Christmas Parade, which also supported the Marine Corps, Toys for Tots Foundation. And that's where I ended up becoming the Santa for the Marine Corps. But the parade also opened up many, many doors. You know, uh Robin McGraw saw me and said, Oh, we need to have him on Dr. Phil's show, and little things like that. Wow. So many doors open because of my volunteer work, you know, which is a wonderful thing. And as I said earlier, this path that I am following, you know, I have to look and say that from high school on, God pointed the direction for me. And every job that I've ever had for any type of company, whether it was working at a pizza parlor or a home improvement company or whatever, there I learned something that I can apply to what I'm doing now as Santa.

SPEAKER_01:

Right. That that to me is that whole journey is amazing. And it was just a series of leaning into whatever opportunity you had and then drawing from past experiences to keep the journey moving forward. I I think that is amazing. So let me ask you, what's the biggest misconception people have about being Santa?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, if you're talking from the Santa side, we have individuals that will contact, example, I do I teach my Santa school. I have 5,700 graduates. It's actually about 3,900 people in all. Some of them have attended two times, maybe three times. But the thing is, most people, you know, you know, have it in their heart. In fact, we we call it reluctant Santa. They weren't planning on it. The daughter came to her dad and said, Dad, would you be Santa for your granddaughter's daycare center? Or, hey, Bill, you are so funny around the water cooler. You would be great as Santa for the company party. And once in a while, they come to some Santa and say, Hey, Jerry, the suit fits you. You know, in other words, you're a big guy, you make a perfect Santa. And they're not planning on doing it. They go into that room with those children. They are nervous, they've got butterflies, they don't know what's going to happen with the children. But the minute they connect with the children, the magic happens. Because no matter who is wearing the red suit, even if you or one of your listeners who had never done this, man, woman, it doesn't matter, it doesn't matter what ethnic background you have, if you have on a little beard and wig and a red suit and you walk into a room with children five years old, the children create the magic. The fantasy in their mind, you are Santa. If they're afraid of you, they'll be afraid, just like they would of any Santa. But in most cases, you can feel the love. And what happens is those individuals, after that event is over, they have a bit of a high, a euphoria. It's like a rock star on stage. You get a high. And so all of a sudden they say, Wow, I gotta do this again. This is fun, you know. There are others out there who uh, you know, I get calls and say, Hey, you know, I'm I'm 260 pounds and I've got a full beard, and everybody tells me I should be a Santa Claus, and you know, I heard I can make, you know, so many thousands of dollars a year and all that. And it's more than that, you know. Now, if we look from the other side, let's look at the moms and dads and the families out there. Many of them think that that person sitting there in the chair with the red suit is probably just somebody's grandpa, you know, just a nice, warm fellow. But today, we have to make sure that the Santa knows how to answer all of the questions that children might bring to him. Right. The easy ones and the difficult ones. We have to make sure that the Santa is well groomed, that he understands that his main mission is the children, but he also has to attend to the needs and the demands the parents might have. Sometimes you'll have four or five bosses when you're sitting there. You have the children, you have the parents, you have the photo company, you have the shopping mall. By the way, the fifth boss is Mrs. Claus. In fact, sometimes I actually say, if we look at it truly, it starts, you know, you've got the children and the parents and the photo company and Mrs. Claus, and then you've got the Lord above, you know, but you have receipts, everybody. In addition, these Santas they have to maintain that wardrobe. Plus, they need to have background checks. We want to make sure that anybody sitting in that chair has been vetted. Right. Parents want to know in comfort that the person their child is visiting is someone safe to be with. Just like your doctor, your nurse, your teacher, your minister, they have all been through some sort of vetting. Santas are vetted, also. We have background checks and everything. Plus, they all have to have liability insurance and all the other business needs to go with it. So there's a lot more to it than so a Santa might spend$1,000 on a Santa suit and$400 on insurance and$100 for a background check, all before he even sits down in the chair.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. I I never, I mean, I understood about the vetting process, didn't think about the insurance, didn't think about the costume. I figured the suit came with the job.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, some of the Santas working with major shopping malls and shopping centers may wear a suit they supplied. Example, here in New York, uh Bloomingdale's the last couple of years had a tie-in with the movie Wicked. So the Santa suit was based on Oz and it was green.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So the Santa, they had to make him a custom suit that he wore only in the Bloomingdale set, as they tied it in with Wicked. So he was the Santa for all the children and the little people of Oz.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

So it was kind of a unique, unique twist on a movie tie-in, that type of thing. So, you know, there are different things. We've also had Santa's wear a different type of green suit to promote ecology and recycling. And of course, if you are a Jewish in some communities to kind of counteract the the Christian message with Santa Claus, parents sometimes will have Harry Hanukkah, who looks like Santa, but he wears a blue suit. And he talks about Hanukkah and and the traditions and things like that. So there are a lot of cool things that are done out there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. So you started your Santa school when in your timeline, when did that happen? When did when did you say, here is a craft that needs to be taught? And I'm the guy to do it.

SPEAKER_00:

As I said, it was around 2000 when I started networking with all of these other Santas in Los Angeles. One of the gentlemen, Richard Christie. I wanted to write a book called Becoming Santa. He invited everybody at the luncheon to write a chapter for the book. So I wrote a couple chapters, but I wrote mine on getting started in the business and the steps of doing a visit with a family, what you need to do, that type of stuff. More of the mechanics, I guess you'd call it. Some of the other Santa's wrote out a hundred questions children ask.

SPEAKER_04:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

Or, you know, how do you style your beard? Things like that. So the Richard put the book together. But after I wrote my two chapters, uh, that was in 2002, I sat down and started writing, and that is the first book you got, Behind the Red Suit. Right. Business of Santa. And as I finished it and started sharing it with other Santas, I was told, wow, this really covers all of it. And even though there are other Santa schools, nobody's ever covered it this detailed. You should teach this. So the summer of 2003, I rented an auditorium at USC in California. I wanted to call my school the University of Santa Claus, but that had actually been trademarked by somebody else. So I call it the International University of Santa Claus. By the way, the the auditorium I rented was in the School of Gerontology. So anyway, we had about 60 Santa's and wives, and I taught the class, and we got wonderful media coverage, Los Angeles Times, at local TV and everything. Two days later, I get a call from Atlanta. There's a gentleman there named Gary Casey. He says, Hey, we've got 200 Santas here and they need training. So in August, the my first school was in July. So in August, I went to Atlanta and taught 200 Santas in Atlanta. And that, of course, gave me the idea. Many of the Santas around the United States cannot afford to go to the established schools. And the established schools were Charles W. Howard, which was taught in Michigan one weekend a year. There was also a school taught in Denver, and it was one weekend a year. And Victor Nevada had a school up in Ontario up in Canada, Calgary, one weekend a year. And they were all taught in October, just before the Santa went to work. So I thought I should teach in the springtime and summer, so that the Santa's have a little time to take what they've learned and apply it to their work with the families, whether it's applying it to getting their suit upgraded or doing their marketing, because some Santas, everybody assumes that the mall Santas are it. That's only about 10% of the industry. The other 90% are Santa's who do volunteer work or are the Santas who do company parties and family visits at homes, you know, go to the tree farms and and do storytelling in the libraries and things like that. That's the other part. So part of my book talked about marketing too.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow. So and and that's your first book. That was my first book. That's your first book. Then you wrote Making the Money. And when I skimmed, I just fell in love with because I think it really captures the essence of what everybody remembers from their childhood when they went to see Santa.

SPEAKER_00:

Now again, the second book was also written as a school book for my school. Because what I'm trying to, what I tried to focus on for the Santa's was let's do a little more work and understanding who is it in line waiting to meet Santa? Who is in that home you're going to visit? What are they expecting? And everybody wants a magical moment. You know, if you talk to any family about their visits with Santa, those seem to be benchmarks in that family life. People can look at a picture from 10 years ago of their child with Santa and they'll say, oh, that's the year that Betsy got her first doll. Or that's when Tommy got his skateboard or his Hot Wheels. People remember these things as benchmarks and magical moments. In addition, in the last, and in this book now is almost 10 years old, in this period in the last 10, 12 years, the digital photography has grown. And more and more people want more than just a picture where a child is on Santa's knees and we're all going, cheese. Right. They want a picture that has that pops, it makes a message. So I started teaching the Santa's a little bit more about how to be more photogenic, how to get the children to be more photogenic, to get the children to relax for the photo, because sometimes that photo will be will show more if the children are actively involved than the child just sitting there doing the cheese. Yes. Yes, the child may be nervous. Maybe mom and dad have taught their child to say cheese. But if I can get the child to stop for a moment, look at me, talk at me, and they say, okay, don't look at the camera. On the count of three, we'll both look at the camera and go, yeah. And guess what? That picture looks different.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Right. The whole magical thing. So we covered that. And in that book, I also include hundreds of photos, examples of how you can do poses. And sometimes you have to remember, we're not going to do these pictures on a Santa set. We're going to be uh, you know, in some warehouse or a company party, and maybe not have the big giant chair and all that. So the whole, but again, that's not the focus. The focus is the children.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

They are the they're the key focus, you know, of the photo. Santa sometimes is just a bit a piece of furniture, you know. But but he's he he can charismatically make it, you know. Example, I might have two children sitting on my lap, but if I turn around and I point at the camera, you know, a little bit, you know, during the photo shoot, it looks a little different. If I have a couple tweeners, you know, tweeners, you know, they're a little awkward. They don't want to get a picture with Santa. They're they're yeah, I can I can sit there and talk to a tweener and say, your mom is forcing you to get this picture, right? And that that child will say, Yeah, you're right, you're right. Now all of a sudden he realizes Santa understands him. And so I'll say, I'll tell you what, you don't have to sit on my lap. Let's just look at the camera. In fact, don't look at the camera, but when I count to three, let's both look at the camera and point at the camera. We do that, we do, we do that, and we go point at the camera, and all of a sudden, you know, it it's it's a different picture. And and and I'll and I'll tell the kids, you know, like, yeah, you know, and guess what? The child or the the tweener knows that it's not going to be a lame photo, right? If it shows up on Instagram, right? Well, because on Instagram with their hands in their pocket and going, cheese. That's their friends will make fun of them.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So they want to have a little different.

SPEAKER_01:

But um that's funny.

SPEAKER_00:

Making the making the moment is all about understanding the families, the children, and what people want out of that visit, you know, that meant the memories. Right. These wonderful memories. Additionally, I try to teach the the Santa's and the people that are going to my school. When you're at the party, yes, the number one rule that we have in our industry is we are there for the children. That's that's it. But children come in all ages. So the parents, you want to make sure you get pictures with the parents of the children. If grandma or Aunt Susie or whoever it's maybe somebody, and they may be, you know, in a walker sitting over in the corner or whatever, you need to address them. Go over visit them, say hi, and get a picture with them. It makes it magical. Because you know, and and sometimes it's it's really beautiful. You go visit them and their eyes twinkle, they just love it. They remembered their childhood, and and even the uh the sons and daughters and other members at the party, you can see it in their faces how much they love the fact that you took the moment to go visit with grandma or Aunt Harriet or whoever.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, yeah. It's I the minute I saw you today, I said to you, I am compelled to ask for a light bright and an easy bake oven. You just mooked the part, and in our you know, brief five-minute conversation before we started recording, I just felt the warmth. And it and it and it really does matter. I think there's a little kid inside of all of us. And it's truly a gift that somebody can draw that out.

SPEAKER_00:

It it and it's fun. And you know, sometimes sometimes my visits aren't with any children at all. I'm visiting a convalescent home, a retirement home, and it's all retirees. And to visit some of them and again have so much fun with them, you know, getting pictures and stuff, you know, you know, I know you're gonna send this to your daughter, right, or your kids or something, you know, and and a kid around with them. Amazingly, even on the street as I'm walking around, people will run into me. And I'm not in a red suit, like today, as you see me, I'm wearing a black turtleneck. But people will see me, and from the neck up, they see the white hair, the white beard, the little mustache curls, and they're going, Are you Santa? And oh, I wish my grandkids were here. And I will turn around and say, Get out your phone. Let's put let's do a video. You know, turn the screen around facing you, and I'll tell that grandparent, I said, Okay, don't let them see me. Start the video and say their names. So, you know, and so grandma will start the video and say, Hey Tommy, hey Susie, and I'll say, Hey, did somebody say Tommy and Susie? And I jump into the video. Oh, whatever. And of course, I talk to the kids and I I kid around a little bit, and I'll say, I'm here in New York and I'm checking on who's naughty or nice. And can you tell me, has has grandma been nice? You know, and and you know, it's a little bit of fun, and they love it because now they're gonna send it to their daughter or their son, so the grandkids can have it, but their daughter and son is probably blown away too. Yeah, yeah. I've done those in airports and all kinds of places. Usually uh there are people that do cameos, you know, you go online and you pay a fee and they make a cameo for you. Right. I probably do a hundred freebies of one cameo.

SPEAKER_01:

Are you on cameo?

SPEAKER_00:

I am on cameo, but I don't do I don't do that many because I'm I'm so busy doing everything else.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

I do work with the Marriott Marquee in New York, and we do visits for guests here in the hotel, and I do some cameos for people that are guests at the hotel that want a special greeting for their children, things like that.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

And then outside of cameo, I also do virtual visits to the example, Lockenfeld Children's Hospital, where we actually I can be on green screen with an animation behind me of the workshop, but they take the laptop from room to room, and I get to visit with children. And many there are some children that are kind of isolated. I won't say they're in a bubble, but the access is restricted because of their treatments, uh, weaken their immune system such that they can't have visitors. So I get to you know do it by video.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Oh, that's fantastic. Now, I want to ask you a little bit about your personal experience with all of these amazing moments and interactions that you create. What's something you've seen as Santa that you'll never forget?

SPEAKER_00:

I have some really fun experiences, of course. Everybody has, you know, memorable moments. And then, of course, everybody has what's the most touching thing and things like that. I think two things are the most touching to me. The first one was in 1970, the first year I worked for Bullocks. I also did some volunteer work with the Junior Chamber of Commerce, the Lakewood JCs. And they actually raised money and then they adopted, working with the social services department, about 40 children who were from single parent, you know, situations. And each of those children were invited to go to a department store, Woolworths, and given$100 to go shopping for their family.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And I got to escort this nine-year-old boy, and I'm taking him through Woolworths. And Woolworths, for those of you who are out there that maybe don't know Woolworths, very similar to a Walmart in regards to all the different types of products you can think of. And here's this young boy, and he's wanting to buy spatulas, toilet paper, oh wow, ketchup. And and and and I was really surprised because I'm I'm thinking he's gonna buy some toys for his brothers and sisters, maybe a toy for himself, and things like that. He was the man of the house now, and he was trying to help his mom.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And he won and and and I'm asking him, and he was saying that his and his mom would go to McDonald's or Burger King and collect toilet paper or collect ketchup packs and things like that. And I was, and this was a boy that lived less than a mile from where I lived. And I'm going, how can this be in my own neighborhood? Of course, I'm talking 1970 when this happened. But that that emotionally touched me that there were so many children out there that didn't have the experience. And so working with Toys for Tots or any type of charity that's out there trying to help children have a better life. There's so much we need to do for these kids because if they don't have people looking out for them, they can go the wrong direction.

SPEAKER_02:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

And we don't want that to happen. We want those children to have some people to look up to, some mentoring, whatever, to help them have a focus so that they will go on and be good citizens as they grow up. And so, you know, that really touched me a lot. Other memorable moments, I think the other most memorable is a convalescent home. I've done many convalescent homes visiting with all the patients, and some of them you visit, and some of the people in the home can get around. They go in a bus to the mall and things like that. Then you meet the people that are confined to wheelchairs, and they don't get around as much. Maybe they get to go to the mall. And then you get to those that are confined to beds. They can't go anywhere anymore. They're, you know, you know, they're but they they still can, you know, play games. Some of them do computers, they have a laptop or whatever. And then as you move further and further back into the convalescent home, you get to the Alzheimer's and the dementia patients. And generally, when I would do all of these things, they would always send like a nurse or uh aides ahead of me to prop the patients up a little bit. So when I come into the room, they're sitting up. Because nothing, nothing more difficult than having a baby in your arms or a person laying in a bed, and someone wants to take a picture, and all we're getting is, you know right up the nostrils. The chin in their nostrils, yeah. So we get them propped up and everything. And I'm visiting all these patients and people, and you know, go in, and sometimes you get a smile, and you know, they they don't know who you are, you know. I walk into a room, and here is a gentleman in his, probably in his late 50s, early 60s, his wife, his daughter, who's in her 30s, and grandma. Grandma is the patient, and she's in the bed, and they've got her all propped up. And I walk around the room, and I usually come in with a little bit of, you know, jingle bells, jingle bells, you know, a little bit of fun. And I come into the room, and this little lady goes, Santay! And I'm going, Wow, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_04:

Hi, how are you?

SPEAKER_00:

You know, and then I look, everybody's crying. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Everybody's crying, it just made me tear up.

SPEAKER_00:

Whoa. And you know, of course, I'd take the pictures and you know, all this. And then, of course, afterwards the nurse explained, the lady'd been in the hospital for three, four years. Sometimes didn't even know if she recognized her son or her daughter. You know, didn't know. Yeah. And yet when I walked in the room, I triggered a childhood memory. So, to all of them, for that moment, they knew that something up here was connecting.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Yep.

SPEAKER_00:

And they were all joyful on it, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

And that was a beautiful gift.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, the thing is, once she explained it to me, I'm crying.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

And I gotta wait a couple minutes to dry up before I go to the next room. Yeah. It's it's you know, it's we hear of these situations with families, and I pray that no one has to really go through this. But as we get older and we're an older society, we have more and more propensity to find loved ones who become forgetful and think that Mrs. Claus is always getting me about my forgetfulness. You know, I multi, I multitask too much. You know, I'll go into the kitchen to start this, and then I'll say, Oh, I need to fix that, and you know, and then and you know, heaven forbid I leave water running, you know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, I mean, with like all of these moments and all of these great experiences that not only you're having, but you're giving to the public at large, anybody that you come into contact with. How do you handle the responsibility of being Santa?

SPEAKER_00:

One year I had as many as 700 Santas working at all the Walmarts and all the Sears stores in the photo concessions, you know, coming to get pictures with Santa. So it's uh, you know, unique things that I've done over the years. I was basically California, but my wife is from New York. And my wife wanted to move back to New York. My daughter graduated from college here, and so the family life was in New York, so I moved more to New York. And from the Hollywood Parade in New York, I'm the Santa for corporate parties for American Express, NBC, Paramount CBS, Hallmark Channel. I like the tree at the New York Stock Exchange. I get to do a lot of wonderful, wonderful things. Some of them, like the Stock Exchange and the tree lighting at Fox or things like that, those are all with the Marine Corps, Toys for Tots. The Marines, I go wherever they want me. I've gone to Nashville and done Grand Old Opry. I've showed up on NASCAR racetracks. I've gone on airlifts of toys for Hurricanes Sandy, Katrina, Matthew, where we have to bring extra toys in because the children in those floods and hurricanes lost everything.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

We have to restock everything they need. And not just toys, books, games. You know, uh during COVID, everybody thought we were going to shut down Toys for Tots and stuff. No. We pushed forward. General Astor, the uh CEO, he's retired from the Marine Corps. He's CEO. He got a program going and we delivered thousands, tens of thousands of books and games to children, inner city kids, who didn't have computers. So they weren't going to be able to be on the internet with their school to keep their minds stimulated. So we needed to get them books. We needed, and we worked with a group called Good 360. And with all what the Marines had and the and the sponsors we have, again, tens of thousands of books and games to kids all over the country.

SPEAKER_01:

That is amazing. I I want to go back to your Santa school a little bit and find out from you what qualities make a truly great Santa beyond the costume.

SPEAKER_00:

Number one thing, in fact, when I start the school, the first thing that pops up on the PowerPoint screen says, it's not the beard, it's not the body shape. Okay? It's not even the red suit. It's what you have in your heart. If you don't have it in your heart, this may not be for you. You know, you've got to, because the sincerity of what what you're doing, you can go in and be, you know, pompous and boisterous and be Santa coming into a room, you know, the big loud ho ho ho's and ringing the bells. But the minute you sit in the chair and start talking to the kids, you can't fake that for too long. Your natural self is going to come through. And if you're if you were phony, the children would know it. Right. Okay. And of course, most of the Santas who do the home visits and all these other things, here's the other thing we've had to do. Children, let's go back to the 1970s when I started. All of the Santas wore theatrical beards, in other words, a temporary beard and wig. And that was it. But kids are smart. And as they've gotten older, and in back, by the way, back in the 70s, the visit might have been for one minute. If you remember the movie Christmas Story, Peter Billingley visiting Santa Claus, he went up the stairway, visited with Santa, and then down a slide, right? Right. The visit's only about a minute long. So in that minute, a child is so focused on reminding, I've got to tell him what I want for Christmas, that I've been good, I won't fight with my brother, you know, like that. That the child doesn't look in detail at the beard and the wig. But as we move the Santa out into the mall and out into the shopping center, and the children could see Santa for 20, 30, 45 minutes. If he had fake boots, a theatrical beard that wasn't really that good, the children noticed. All of a sudden the magic disappears. So everybody in the industry, the photography companies, the malls, everybody, the transition moved over to having real bearded Santa's. And it was so great because a lot of the baby boomers at that time were throwing their razors away. Right, right. A big influx of men with beards that could take the jobs. So real bearded Santa's became in. And it also became where we had to have real boots. We couldn't have a vinyl covers over street shoes and things like that. We had to have realism because the children notice that. Right, right. You know, so if they can do that, they can spot someone with a beard that's you know not real. So we have to we bring the realism. And when you go into somebody's home, it's even more important because you're sitting on the sofa for 20 minutes with all the children. Right. The magic is there. The magic is there, and that's what the Santas do. So uh we have to do that. And that's what I love about it. I've I've gotten uh, you know, I've I have learned so much, not from the Santas that I teach, and from the kids too. You ever you learn something new?

SPEAKER_01:

How what what's one of the most touching success stories you've had from one of your students?

SPEAKER_00:

From one of my students? Well, let's see. I've had a couple students that have done some unique things. I had one student come to the class. He was working on a documentary about how to become a Santa. And he actually the when they filmed the documentary, one of the things that I taught in the school was a cute thing. Sometimes people book Santa and they they they wait to the last minute and they can't get Santa because he's already booked everywhere.

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

But some Santa's will say, I'll tell you what, I can show up at 2 a.m. at your house on Christmas Eve. The kids will be asleep, but we can do a wake-up call.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And that's and all of a sudden the parent says, What's that? He says, That's where I come in, I take a few of the presents, all the presents are under the tree, I have a couple in my bag, I kneel down at the tree, and you go wake your kids up and tell them, Oh, wow. And the kids get to go in the living room and catch Santa in the act. And, you know, and then Santa, of course, you know, poses for a couple pictures, gives them the two few presents that are in his bag, and then while they're opening the presents, he escapes. He disappears. And this gent this Santa did that. And later, the uh director who directed the whole thing, it was his niece and nephew that they'd done the filming with. He said, I went to Christmas lunch the next day with the gr with my niece and nephew, and they're sitting there talking about how they caught Santa the night before. They were so excited.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's awesome.

SPEAKER_00:

My biggest failing was I didn't film that.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

The reaction of the children. And you know, so you hear stories like that, and and and all of a sudden, I in my mind, I could see that whole scene of him at that lunch table with the grand with the niece and nephew, yeah, just explaining all the things that happened with Santa. I've had other situations, uh, cute situations where children come up and ask for stuff, and then the mother comes over and says, and the child asks for an elf to come and do her homework. And I said, Oh, we can't do that. You have to do your own homework. That's how you get smart, you know. Well, can you give me a real reindeer? Oh, do you have a stable at your house to keep the reindeer? Great. Okay, well, that doesn't work either. You know, Santa's magic is toys, and that's a great angle. Santa's magic is toys, and so we we try to use that a lot. And so let me see what I can do. Well, could I get a laptop? He says, Well, I'll see what we can do. But again, I'm my magic is toys, okay? Right. Laptops, anything beginning with an eye, we usually try to usually try to move the child's focus to asking the parent because they've got to have internet connection and phone lines and everything else. So again, it's that. But the mother comes over to me, she says, Oh, Santa, I'm sorry. She asked for all those things. I didn't know she was gonna do that. I said, I said, it's okay. Children are told, I grant wishes, and they see the world that they can pick from in the wishes and what they want. She says, Oh no, it's not that, Santa. She said, We're Jewish. And I told the mother, I said, then even more so. She probably has friends who have Christmas, and her friends are telling her about all the things that they get from Santa. She would like to have that same benefit, you know.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

So again, it I know it's a problem coming from a Jewish household, but again, that's why many Jewish households, by the way, with Hanukkah, have different gifts on different nights, or they have hairy Hanukkah. They're trying to compete with their friends at school.

SPEAKER_01:

Right, right. No, I completely understandable. I know, you know, as time, as time goes on, and maybe even back in the day when you first started in the 70s, you got a little bit of this. But I think as life has moved forward, things have become more complicated. Children, in some instances, are forced to grow up quicker than they were in years past. How do you teach Santa's to handle emotional situations with children?

SPEAKER_00:

It is a difficult thing. And again, you have children that, like you said, they do grow up faster. You know, five years of age is usually the age level we look at right now, where most children believe completely. Right. Once they get into school and they're with other kids, particularly if they interact with kids in other grades, they quickly get disillusioned to what maybe the story of Santa and what Santa does. So a lot of times the belief in Santa Claus or St. Nicholas or the gift giving and everything comes back to the parents having to have a strong presence in what's going to go on and things like that. But we do get kids to come to us and we teach it in the school. You're gonna have a child come to you and says, My friends told me there's no Santa. Right. Wait a minute. I uh I I feel like Santa, I got a real kid, you know. It says, I'm real. Are you are you real? And and the child, you know, it's kind of, and you have to understand, their friends are telling them, no Santa. Mom and Dad are saying, yes, there is, and their friends are saying, go check the closets and see if there's any toys being hidden, you know, all these other things. Yeah, and this and the child is still coming to you to visit you because they're hedging their bet. They want to make sure that he's that that seven-year-old or eight-year-old, he wants to get that that PlayStation or that, you know, Xbox Five or whatever. They want that special item, but you know, they want to make sure they're gonna get it. So they better go visit Santa, even though your friends are telling them no. Right, right.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, and and I think there's like a couple swing years in there where they don't want to admit that they might not believe 100%, because if they do, they might not get any presents. And and that was we had that with my two nephews.

SPEAKER_00:

There is that fun line that a lot of people use. Those that don't believe don't receive.

SPEAKER_04:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

You know, uh, and of course, some parents say if you don't believe, you get underwear. You know, you're talking about difficult, you know, transitions and and and emotions and things like that. There is a segment in the school we teach, and a lot of people don't realize that uh the Santa's are trained in this, but we have to handle difficult questions. Answer children have been told Santa grants wishes. Sometimes the children, a child will take and that be make that wish an intangible. It's not a toy, it's not a gift, it's not something real. It is fixing a social problem. Right. Number one, when I started in 1970, I was told I would get these problems of children coming to you asking you to fix a divorce.

SPEAKER_03:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

That's the number one. In the 1970s, they said, you know, you can tell the child that you're hoping things will get better, you know, you could, you know, tell them you pray that, you know, everything will get better for them, and then mom and dad will get back together. Through the years, we're now 50 years later, and the word is you can't really promise them that. You can't really set up their hopes that the divorce is not going to happen. Because percentage-wise, it will probably happen. So all you can do is let the child know that you have two parents. Two parents who love you very, very much. They will always love you. Now, let's hope that maybe they won't have a divorce, but I know I've talked to other children and they've had divorces in their families, but they've always had two parents that love them. Santa loves you too. And when I say Santa loves you too, it's time to change direction of the conversation to what do you want for Christmas?

unknown:

Right.

SPEAKER_03:

What to do.

SPEAKER_00:

And so we have that difficult question. We have a difficult question of somebody's ill and in the hospital, can you fix them?

SPEAKER_01:

Right.

SPEAKER_00:

Or grandma passed away, can you bring her back? These are difficult questions. Again, you can only tell them they're being loved, that Santa loves you too, and change the subject. And probably the you know, we also get, you know, bring daddy home from the war, you know, or from the military, or mommy from the military. Sometimes in some areas, you get a child who has a a family member who's incarcerated. And that's and that's always difficult because the parent has done the time, done the crime, but the children do the time. You know, you have to kind of so you have to let them know that they're still loved and move on. The bad part about this is that when we visit with a child, the visit's only a minute or two. That's all. We don't have a whole time to sit there and talk and work on their emotions. We we we have to move on. So we have to move them, transition them quickly from that they're loved to, and Santa loves you too, to what do you what would you like to see under the tree?

SPEAKER_01:

Your third book. I think it's your most recent book, Surviving the Holidays, all about planning, organizing, handling holiday depression, seasonal depression. I was very shocked to find out that that book, which I also have, I was very shocked to find out that parents and families were not the original inspiration for that book, but it was actually other folks who are involved in the business of Santa, the business of Christmas. So talk to me a little bit about your inspiration.

SPEAKER_00:

I I guess inspiration, it's number part of it can start with me, okay. Example, if I'm Santa and I'm working, I start my work maybe a week before Thanksgiving, starting to maybe a few little parties, and then the day after Thanksgiving, lots of little parties and events. If I'm working in a mall, which I did when I started in the 70s, we started a week before Thanksgiving. And you're working 40 some days in a row, five, six, eight, 10-hour days. If you don't have your house decorated for Christmas before you start work in November, you're in deep trouble.

SPEAKER_04:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

You've got to plan ahead and do things like that. And I found out when I started networking with the other Santa's, they were all having the same problems. Now, I was fortunate I was also a member of the National Speakers Association because my previous life I had worked for major charities and had been gone out and taught workshops on fundraising and things like that. And a few of the other people in the Speakers Association were time management and organizational skills and things like that, people that would teach you how to unclutter your life and stuff like that. And I learned things from them, and I thought maybe some of these things should be put together for the Santas. So I started creating little web pages on my website for the other Santas, the Santa's going to my school on how to organize their life. Some of it you start in July. Right. People say, what July? Well, the thing is, is in July, go through your closets, go through your ornaments, see what you're gonna keep for this year, get rid of what you're not gonna keep. Start writing your notes. If you put a letter in your Christmas card about what you did for the year, start writing that. Make sure you got the little story of your year started. Start making your list of who you're gonna mail things to. Start making a list of who you're gonna buy things for. Maybe start buying a few things. You know, if you give gift cards out, why not buy a couple gift cards each month instead of trying to pay for them all in December? You know, start doing things a little early. And so I gave them a calendar starting in July. But I gave them things to do in July, things to do in August, things to do in September, things to do in October, and by the middle of November, you're done and you can go enjoy December. Okay. That was for the Sandas. As I started working on this, though, when we start looking at the families, you and I and everybody else, we have a regular schedule of some sort. If you work in an office, you work a nine to five, and you work right through till just before Christmas. If you're a homemaker, you you're working nine to five all nine to five, you're working 24-7 taking care of the house. And it's the same routine every week, sometimes the same routine every day. Right. We get towards the holiday season, and all of a sudden your calendar starts getting extra things dumped on top of it. Oh, I gotta go gift shopping. Oh, I gotta buy food for the Christmas dinner. Oh, we I I gotta help get things ready for you know the children's Christmas play or a school event or go visit Aunt Harriet or and all of a sudden, and then if you work in a company or something like that, you get invited to parties at your friends' homes or whatever. All of these things get thrown on top, and you know, and you gotta buy a gift to take to the hostess of the party, and you know, all these things it can be very, very burdensome when it's thrown on top of everything. Right. Some people it stresses them out. Plus, the days are shorter, the days are darker, which is an automatic psychological downer. People get depressed just because of the shorter days and the darkness of the days. That's without any other stuff on top of it. So I started writing these chapters and paragraphs of things geared to the public, geared to all the families, and wanting them to know things that they can do.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I looked through it and found all of the suggestions incredibly helpful for that very reason. Is I'm already juggling life to begin with, and then you put holiday life on top of it. And sometimes that can suck the joy right out of the holiday season for me.

SPEAKER_00:

That's what what I'm trying to do is. To allow you to have more time for joy. The other thing I put into the book is put in some days for yourself.

SPEAKER_04:

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. You need to de-stress. So put in some time to go get a mani petty. Go to a spa. Hey, if it's a guy, put in a day to go golf or go do something with your buddies, you know, where you're going to unwind. Put in some time for yourself. Even if you want kids, you know, maybe this is the time when you tell your husband, watch the kids. I'm going to go with my girlfriends over to, you know. In other words, you need those little things to break up the monotony and help you relax a little. So then you can actually go ahead with the tasks at hand.

SPEAKER_01:

So yeah. It's a great resource. And just to kind of close things out, a little bit of lighthearted stuff. What do you hope people feel after they meet you as Santa?

SPEAKER_00:

Well, you know, I've actually had people, you know, slide up to me afterwards and, you know, just the the glow in a parent's eyes or something like that, you know, gosh, you are the real Santa. Wow, my kids, you know, it's great. I hope that when I touch people, you know, I give them some joy. I often remind them that I am the official Santa for the Marine Corps, Toys for Tots. So if you can go online to ToysForTots.org, make a donation, or buy a virtual gift, help us out. Last year we were able to reach 10.3 million children.

SPEAKER_01:

Wow.

SPEAKER_00:

And this this is a program started in 1947 by a group of Marines who came home from World War II and found out that there were a lot of orphans in Los Angeles that had no Christmas because they'd lost their parent. So the the Marines collected toys and took care of 5,000 children. That started Toys for Thomas. Wow. Today, you know, it's you know almost 30 million toys, 10 million children, and we now do foster care programs. We do where we we make sure that children that are pulled out of foster homes get something, you know, as soon as possible to help them cope being in foster care. We also look at working with the Indian reservations, and we follow up after natural disasters. I am very, very lucky, you know, to be the Santa for the Marine Corps, to be Mariah Carey's Santa, to get to dance with the rockheads and all kinds of fun things and stuff like that. But when it gets down to it, it's the same thing I teach in my school. We're there for the children. Right. Right. We're there for the children.

SPEAKER_01:

Santa Tim, I cannot thank you enough for all of the time you shared with me this morning. I know it's your busy season.

SPEAKER_00:

Well, for everybody who's listening, okay, I want to wish you all a wonderful holiday season, Merry Christmas, happy Hanukkah, Malikaliki Paha, all of the little Christmas terms and stuff like that. But remember that each of us in our own way can give the joy of giving and helping others. And that's what is unique about the human psyche. We can do things for others. And isn't it nice to get those warm, fuzzy feelings of doing something for somebody else?

SPEAKER_01:

Santa Tim, thank you so much.

SPEAKER_00:

Bless you all. Take care. Bye-bye. Ho ho ho.

SPEAKER_01:

Tim was so warm and engaging, and his passion for being Santa, mentoring Santa's and giving back to the people and communities he reaches through his work was nothing short of inspiring. There were so many things we talked about, and one of the more prominent points for me was how he coaches his Santas to understand the room, whether it's at a mall, a private home, a nursing home, or even a hospital. Teaching them to take the time to connect with each person in each different distinct situation speaks volumes of his gift for bringing magic. Although the role has changed over the years, Tim hasn't lost his spark or his twinkle when he discusses all of the experiences he's had over the years. If you're interested in learning more about Tim, his books, his Santa school, or if you'd like to donate to Toys for Todd's year-round, jump down to the show notes for all the links so you can start spreading some holiday magic throughout the year. I love all my guests, and I know I'm not supposed to have favorites, but talking to Santa is at the top of my favorites list. I hope you all have a happy, Merry whatever it is you celebrate this season. And I'll see you in two weeks. Thanks for listening.

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Helen

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