It takes more than a white beard and a bowl full of jelly to step into these legendary boots

By Charlene Arsenault

A few weeks ago at The Emerald Square Mall in Attleboro, Sal Lizard sunk into his throne for his four-hour shift, grinning with child after child for the camera, surrounded by piles of empty but meticulously-wrapped presents and cotton-ball snow. The camera set-up came complete with umbrellas, lights and LCD monitor gunned toward him, the scene sectioned by burgundy ropes. Santa was royalty, as far as the kids waiting for him were concerned.

Not all of the kids were smiling. Being royalty, they were either in awe or fear of him. Some of the really little kids looked coyly away — or cried. Some parents may have cried when they spotted the pricing for the photo packages, too (circling $30 these days).

Sal Lizard (right) at the changing of the Santa shift.

Lizard is an actor by trade, and he's portrayed everything from a grandpa to a pirate to a hillbilly in films. But he was Santa that day, according to those kids and that mall. And according to The Santa Claus Code, any other Santa worth his salt would respect that. You see, if you've been blessed with the snowy white beard and rotund, cheeky face and choose to embrace the image your genes thrust upon you, you'd better not be naughty about it. Not like one day recently when a certain other "Santa" fished for private party bookings with the parents who stood in that line.

"They asked him to leave," says Ed Medeiros, who shares Santa duties with Lizard at The Emerald Square Mall during the week. "I don't care who he is; a good Santa would not do that. He is not Santa. He just wanted parties." 

Some Santa 'bling.'

So to get to the root of a "real Santa," it was important to spend some time with — and talk to — a few who deem themselves such. The real ones, in fact, heartily accept the responsibility befallen to them. If need be, they will slip into the role year ‘round, but especially ramp it up come November.

"Santas are a dime a dozen," says Lizard. "That's the bad side of being a mall Santa. There are two kinds of Santas. There is the mall Santa and there is the type of Santa who sees it as a calling." Lizard falls into the latter categoriy, and is a member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. "The whole mission statement is to bring Christmas to children year ‘round," says Lizard, who is originally from Nashua, "so when kids will see us in the mall and things like that, I'll hear a mother say, ‘Oh, honey, that's probably just a nice old man who looks like Santa,' and you can see the disappointment in the child's face, so I just look over at them and go ‘Shhhhh' and they just brighten right up. To us, this is just a calling. 

Santa (Sal Lizard) taking a phone call.

Likewise, Medeiros has been an authentic Santa Claus for 15 years, serving at Rhode Island area malls for the past 12. He takes a bit longer shift than Lizard, and while Lizard fields more of the "questioners," Medeiros admittedly has got the "criers" because he works the throne in the daytime. Long favoring a Sebastian Cabot goatee, when Medeiros retired he started "letting it go and figured he'd do Santa for his grandchildren." A chance meeting at a campground with another real Santa named Elmer — who started at Cherry Hill in Rhode Island and is now in the upper echelon of Santas working at Disneyland — instigated Medeiros's desire to explore the role. "He said, ‘You can make money at it,'" says Medeiros. "If you don't enjoy this, though, you cannot do it. The day I don't enjoy it is the day I quit."

They don't work for candy canes

The Santa business is big business, and one to be taken seriously. In fact, the International Santa Claus Association (which is based in Northern Europe) dispatches its accredited Santa Clauses worldwide — including to the U.S. — who have passed the official and difficult test to be recognized by the Association as a Santa. There are also Santa schools throughout the country who train those who aspire to know the ways of the red suit. 

A&E Editor Charlene “Little Chuckie” Arsenault with Santa (Sal Lizard) at the Emerald Square Mall in North Attleboro.

You can book Lizard and get in touch with him through www.genuinesanta.com, but he — and Medeiros — presently work for a company called Photo Promotions out of Holliston. Formerly, they both worked for Noerr Programs, a Colorado-based entertainment company and possibly the biggest supplier of Santas nationwide. Likewise, sites such as www.bookedasanta.com and www.realsantas.com dispatch Clauses.

"When you work exclusively at a mall," says Lizard, "and this was my big complaint about Noerr, is you're there before the mall opens and until it closes. It's every single day. The only day you have off is Thanksgiving. With Noerr, it's a contract. It's like $7,000 plus a bonus or traveling money. The thing about Photo Promotions is they just pay me an hourly wage. That way, you don't have the same problem that everyone with a salary complains of."

Now he makes $25 an hour and works about 20 hours per week. But he still has his share of payment headaches.

"The promotion companies will mess up your pay," says Lizard. "Like, I'm from Ohio, so when I'm here and have worked for three weeks and haven't received a paycheck because it got sent to the wrong address, it's tough. They consider it my fault. I actually got them to stop payment on two and reissue a check, but then they charged me. They took $70 out of it to cover the stop-payment fees. They were like, ‘You gave us the wrong address.' And I'm like, ‘I don't know how I made an eight a four.' It's that sort of thing. I'm staying here in a foreign bed and I'm away from my resources so when I'm out of money, it's not good. Today, I got a paycheck and it was $120 short. They said they would make it up in the next check. Well, part of the $120 was that they were making up from the check before that."

A Christmas know-it-all Jesus wasn't born in Manhattan, and Santa wasn't always so jolly There may be people who know more about Christmas than Edward T. O'Donnell, but they're not around here.  Ed O'Donnell Now an associate professor of history at the College of the Holy Cross, O'Donnell started out after graduate school as a professor at NYC, where his field of expertise was — and still is — urban history. "In studying and researching and writing about New York City history," says O'Donnell, "I became very aware that what we think of in America as Christmas mostly was invented in New York City. I'm talking about the public celebration of it; I don't think Jesus was born in Manhattan." O'Donnell explains that all the stories, all the trappings, can be directly traced to the city. "A Visit from St. Nicholas" was written on the west side of Manhattan. And there are plenty of interpretations of Santa that sprang up throughout the world, but it wasn't until Thomas Nast drew his famous nineteenth-century sketches for Harper's Weekly that we first came to know the image now synonymous with Mr. Claus. "There are just a list of connections," says O'Donnell. "This was an evolving thing. I give a lot of public lectures, and I found that there were a lot of people interested in the topic. It's incrementally growing into one of the sub-fields I work on." Most of O'Donnell's expertise is on the American side, but he does explain that St. Nicholas was originally the fourth-century Bishop of Myra in Asia Minor (what is now Turkey). Beyond being an early church figure known for giving gifts to the poor, there isn't much known about the man. "There is one story attached to him," he says. "He saved three daughters from being sold into prostitution or slavery. He was in debt, but he saved them by tossing a bag of gold into their window in the night. That may or not be what transformed him into a gift-giving figure. The Dutch settled Manhattan and St. Nicholas was the Patron Saint of New Amsterdam. There is a Father Christmas figure in England, as well. Each European society developed its own variation of Santa. In some places, he came on a boat. The reindeer are Scandinavian additions."  Old icons, he says, do not portray Santa Claus as so jolly. He is depicted, rather, as a stern church figure. Christmas day, too, is "completely invented," says O'Donnell. It was Clement Clarke Moore's publishing of the poem "A Visit From St. Nicholas" in the 1820s, which pulled various traditions together, that would eventually inspire today's story of Santa. The poem is commonly referred to by its opening line, "‘Twas the Night Before Christmas." "The whole idea of coming down the chimney," says O'Donnell, "and filling stockings, going on his way ... if you read that poem closely, he refers to those things. But it implies that he is a small elf. In the earliest drawings in the 1840s, well into the 19th century, he is an elfish, gnome-like figure — not a full-sized guy. It does refer to his belly shaking like a bowl full of jelly, but it isn't clear. But 35 years later, Thomas Nast drew the first of his magazine covers for Harper's Weekly, and Santa's now full-sized and has the red outfit and trim, and this became the annual tradition." O'Donnell says, too, that the Nast drawings solidified that Kris Kringle came from the North Pole and that he had a "naughty and nice list," as well. In fact, through the 19th century, Santa carried a whip, and the indication was that you'd get a lot more than a lump of coal if you were bad. Santa, though, evolves. Now, he very well may be owned by Coke, Pepsi or Wal-Mart — but he is getting leaner, and never smokes his pipe anymore as he so famously did in Nast's drawings (just as, O'Donnell points out, the Cookie Monster lays off the cookies on "Sesame Street" these days). "For a long time, Santa was the ultimate grandfather," says O'Donnell. "And that was consistent through ‘The Miracle on 34th Street' and through my youth. But now, Christmas is a big business, and they want to come up with something new. So you have funny Santas and bad Santas. Santa is whatever you want him to be, at least in terms of Hollywood."o —C.A.

The men behind the suits

Lizard's been doing the Santa thing for 20 years now, and says he's a young one at 52. "Strangely enough," he says, "I've had this look for a while. When I was 20 and in college and not old enough to go into bars, my mother said to me during dinner, ‘Honey, did you know you're getting a lot of white hair?' Around the same time, I remember a guy saying ‘Excuse me, pops,' and also a girl said to me, ‘Why don't you hit on somebody your own age?'"

In Ohio, Lizard works for a company testing samples from grain elevators.

"I have my master's in computer sciences," says Lizard. "But the day I got my master's was the day I got let go because I over-qualify for everything. I was making more than $100,000, and now I make $7 an hour as a grain sampler."

Even though he's now stationed in the Midwest, Lizard generally works at malls in Nashua, New Hampshire, North Attleboro and the North Central Massachusetts area, arriving in the area on Nov. 5 for the season. Funny thing is, Lizard says once he moved to Ohio, that's when he could easily get a job.

"There are a lot of farmers in Ohio who happen to be older guys with white beards," says Lizard. "There are lots of professional Santas. One guy, Uncle Fred, lives in Circleville, Ohio, but travels to Denver each year to be a Santa. It's just one of those things where we're from all over. There are Santas who live in the New England area who travel to Florida. Santa companies seem to encourage that."

Lizard also calls himself a professional actor and stand-up comedian — Santa being one of his favorite characters. In fact, when we dropped by his dressing room at the mall, Santa, in a worn red T-shirt and velvet pants, had his Bluetooth strapped to his head and was checking one of his character's Myspace pages while waiting for Medeiros to hit the dressing room (and by dressing room, we mean a glorified rectangular-shaped closet with a medium-sized folding table, cardboard boxes piled in the back, a coat rack and signs from mall management detailing how to be a proper Easter Bunny).

Proper attire

This true calling to be a Santa, too, translates into going the extra mile — and spending extra money - to have the required getup. Three complete Santa suits always hang in Lizard's closet. Each year, he buys a new one and retires one, usually bringing in about $30 on eBay if it's in good condition. He drops in the vicinity of $350 to $500 on each suit, and that doesn't count accessories. His boots - big, black leather ones that shine with a gold "S" on one and a "C" on the other — were $400 and an extra $100 for the buckles. It cost $25 for the cobbler to attach those buckles. Lizard's custom belt — marked by a shiny, bold slab of gold metal that reads "Santa" in capital letters — ran him $240.

"The guy who makes these belts is a professional Santa — Santa Richards," says Lizard, "so he sends it out with this little Santa's bag that protects the buckle. When I go out on the set, I put my keys and money and business cards in it, so I hand that to the girls and they can get my lunch and all that stuff."

Worcester Police Department Sgt. Paul Markiewicz finds that playing Santa is a welcome change from the gritty reality of police work. Seven-year-old Samantha Tinsley tells him what she wants for Christmas at Murphy’s Grille.

Typically, Santa pants are an elastic waistband, buttonless, zipperless sack of velvet legs where the front shows no distinction from the back. Lizard, however, recently met a costume designer on one of his movie sets, and she is tailoring him a custom suit. He's already got his fancy pants.

"These pants have belt loops and pockets and a fly," he boasts. "We like to be able to take off our jacket occasionally. To have something like this is nice." Ruby's is the top designer in Santa suits. If you can get your hands on a good Ruby suit, you're stylin'.

Germs, wet pants and knowing how to cope

There is a certain brotherhood among Santas. Backstage, Lizard and Medeiros talk about how to avoid getting sick from the kids (one of the biggest hazards of being a Santa), and what vitamins to ingest to ward off the ills. They also cover for one another, and exchange notes and hip each other to the latest wish-list forerunners. They've got sites and newsletters they check, too, so they know what they are talking about. It seems the age of asking for dolls and fire trucks is far behind.

"Sometimes I don't know what they're asking for," admits Medeiros. "They'll be mumbling and I just say, ‘Hoooo, veeeryy good, then!'"

Every Santa weaves his own little story to appease the older, questioning kids. Bill Rivernider, who plays Santa in Sturbridge and at events in surrounding towns (see sidebar, page 16), says he lets the birds do the work in his Santa tale.

"I have a good imagination," says Rivernider. "I came up with the idea that the blue jays are my spies. It works good because they can look in bedroom windows, school rooms and things like that. Everybody asks if they are on my ‘bad' list. I say that there are some children who do things that aren't right, but it doesn't make them bad. I try to get away from good and bad. Most kids are good, but they get spoiled by society, unfortunately. I honestly think that children are God's gift to us and we should enjoy them while we can."

Lizard, who is being featured in an upcoming book called The Real Santas, has pockets full of funny comments from his visitors.

"I tell people, children are so precocious, he says. "About three years ago, they were really worried about all the Santas. This particular Christmas, they were particularly worried about me being healthy. Someone said, ‘Santa, I brought you a cookie, but it's sugar-free because my mom said you might have ‘dietwheaties.' One boy said, ‘Your belly is so big. Have you thought of joining a gym?' Someone asked if I had gotten stuck in a chimney. I think it was all the commercials about cholesterol. When the girl asked about ‘dietwheaties,' I just said, ‘Ho, ho, ho!' and when the boy mentioned the gym, I said, ‘I'll think about that one and talk to Mrs. Claus.' When the girl asked if I had gotten stuck, I said that was a bad rumor. When kids ask me what my cholesterol level is, I tell them next time I talk to the North Pole physician, I will ask him."

You can't have a squeamish stomach if you're going to be a Santa Claus. Getting puked or peed on shouldn't faze the pro. It's one of the occupational hazards of the job. "I'll tell you," says Lizard, "You have to put yourself in the child's position. They hear of Santa and he gets to arbitrarily decide if they were good or bad. And then the parents bring them to this throne ring, and you have to stand in line for him, so he must be important. It's no wonder they are intimidated. I try to help them relax. Every now and then, though, I'll feel that warmth when they sit on my leg. I try not to embarrass them and I have a signal to have my assistant bring paper towels. If they throw up, they throw up. I try to keep an extra jacket. It does happen.

In the end, a real Santa's always got another suit in his trunk. And a real Santa will never let you see him sweat over a pee mark on his pants or a question about his cholesterol level. o