#971 Real-bearded Santas

Neil Pasricha

Just try and tug it

Rare is the Santa Claus who can earnestly grow that full lion’s mane of bright white hair. But I’m sorry, it’s what We The People demand. Fake beards on Santa Claus are an insult. They mock the jolly Christmas cheer, like a wreath made out of lettuce, gingerbread house made of saltines, or a turkey made out of Tofurkey.

So let’s get one thing straight, Kringle — grow the real beard or don’t apply at the mall. It’s that simple. And it’s what the fraternity demands.

AWESOME!

An insult to Christmas

71 thoughts to “#971 Real-bearded Santas”

  1. Santa lives in my apartment complex when he’s not at the North Pole. He lives three doors down and a floor below me. He is jolly and fat and has a full, long, white beard. He masquerades as a biker so that the kiddies won’t torment him all year, except when he forgets and wears his fire engine-red t-shirt and suspenders.

    2. That’s cool. He did my taxes for me one year. No, really, the guy was a Santa during the holidays.

  2. My young son was in awe to discover that Santa shops at the same Safeway as us. He pointed out that there were no cookies in the cart. Ever since, we can only leave out butterscotch pudding and graham crackers.

      1. Surely he doesn’t buy them ‘cos people give him so many, not because he doesn’t like them!

  3. The Santa at Sherway Gardens mall in Etobicoke has an AWESOME real beard. My daughter caught on early that some mall Santa’s are fake. My explanation was that Santa is too busy at the North Pole to hang out at malls, so he gets some other dudes to help out. But you never know if it might, just might, be the real Santa. A real beard goes a long way to create that kind of mystique. I heard that this particular Santa is also a trained opera singer, which is probably why his ho-ho-hos can be heard throughout the mall.

    1. That’s frikin AWESOME! Wish I had that kind of imagination, when it comes to my little brother! And he sure sounds cool!

  4. Love the real bearded santa. And you’re right, they’re rare anymore. Our mall has a great one at Christmas time though – real beard and very realistic. The kids love him.

  5. Hey, don’t diss the Tofurky! It lets us veggie people experience/relive the traditional family Xmas/Thanksgiving meal in style! Go, Tofurky!

    1. Yeah Neil! NO DISSING THE TOFURKY! It takes a lot of guts to be a vegetarian. Chicken, turkey, and “real” burgers smell so good, but I haven’t had any since the age of three.

      It’s an interesting story, I was eating chicken one night, and I kinda rubbed it in my mom’s face (I was three alright!?), since she was a vegetarian. I chanted “ I’m eating chicken! I’m eating chicken!” She said back, “Well, I just wouldn’t kill a chicken personally, so why would I eat one?”

      Then it hit me that chicken was real chicken.
      And I haven’t eaten meat since then.

  8. A daughter of a friend of mine got lice from Santa’s real beard one Christmas. Not awesome.

  9. I must protest the mean spirit of this article! It surely does not reflect the spirit that Santa tries to bring to young and old alike. If you are interested in finding out about the fake bearded Santa, I invite you to go to http://www.santaandsam.com or to read the book, Santa and Sam’s Big Secret.

  10. Well I wish people would contact us owners and caretakers of our websites and groups before posting eroneous comments about us not to mention linking untruthful stories to our sites.

    I am the owner and moderator of the Fraternity of International Real Bearded Santas. Lots of people have lots of preferences to lots of things but our purpose is not to exclude Santas but to include those with a common trait for discussions and care. We as a Fraternity strive to be the best that we can for the betterment of Christmas and the enjoyment of all, small or tall.

    BTW, does the Santa in the picture know you’re using it or are you also violating internation copyright law?

    Santa Tom Kliner

    mailto:santas_home@hotmail.com
    mailto:santa@sleighridermedia.com
    http://www.santatom.com
    http://www.sleighrider.com
    http://groups.msn.com/SantasAcrosstheGlobe
    http://groups.msn.com/FIRBSantas

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  13. Once every ten years, at the start of a new decade, 2,000 local residents of the small German town of Oberammergau perform the Passionsspiele (Passion Play), a dramatic recreation of the last days of Christ. The residents are required to not have their hair cut until the play is finished, for authenticity’s sake.

    Granted, their German hue, and likely German wine attenuate this lovely tradition somewhat, but I can respect the devotion.

    I don’t think it’s too much to have a designated, authentic santa. Sure, he may not be able to levitate his plethora poundage of a behind with the help of magical reindeer, but I don’t think not taking sharp implements to natural hair growth is too much to ask.

  14. In the town I live in, I often see a white bearded gentleman wearing red, driving around in his van with garland on the dashboard (year round)!
    Makes you smile a bit inside.

  16. Columbiana Centre in Columbus, S. C. has the most wonderful real beard santa claus in the world…just ask his grandkids…& everyone else who has their picture taken with him…

  17. So, so true.
    I remember once when I was a child actually crying when I saw the Santa in the mall, and my mother told me to go over. I’m pretty sure he was a faker of the beard…
    Real bearded santas just make me happier and more in the Christmas spirit

  18. My father-in-law is the real deal. What is truly awesome is going to the beach with him in the summer and watching the reactions of all the believers out there (including the adults)! Too Cool.

  19. my grandad has always had a white beard, to a point i was concinced he was santa. at christmas time he purposefully let it grow and wore green or red jumpers so we though he was getting to deliver presents. even now me, my brother and all my cousins are all grown up he still does it. the best time was when we were in a toy shop, he was looking at a train set, and a little boy stood there wide eyed convinced he was santa claus, pulling on his mums coat to get her to look. you can’t imagine how amazing it is to be that kid who spots my grandad. awesome.

  20. I hate to tell you, everyone, bu the truest Santa that ever existed died in 1996. He was my grandfather. He never shaved his beard, he was a VOLUNTEER mall Santa, and exuded Christmas cheer year round. Never has a truer embodiment of the White Bearded Kringle existed.

    I haven’t visited a Santa since you passed, Grampy! I love you, and your white beard.

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  23. Ew Tofurky?! Wouldn’t eat that even if my life depended on it! If I was small enough I would walk up to one of those beard-fakers and pull said fake beard clear off their faces! Ha, to you my fake friend!

  24. Where do you find these websites!? I love the post to, by the way, it was wonderfully random in a joyous way of course, as are all random things!

  25. Sitting having a hot dog at Costco with my four year old son about 1 month after Christmas. A gentleman with the long WHITE beard and RED hat walked by pushing his cart. He caught my son staring at him, smiled, and said “HO HO HO!”. The look on my son’s face was priceless.
    Awesome!

  26. Well, I won’t tell you how to find my, but I am THE real Santa:)) Ho ho ho, c’mon Rudolf, let’s go:P

  30. I once was driving on the road and then, all of a sudden, this red SUV comes rolling up and drives in front of us and is going SO SLOOOW. But while it’s driving around us, I glimpse a guy with a white beard and his wrinkly old wife, both dressed in red, in the van. First words out of my mouth were “IT’S A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE!” As they drove in front of us I didn’t mind anymore, especially since the license plate said MRCLAUS. Win!

  31. Woodwards dept store knew how to create magic. Windows were dorned with mechanical people, places and things. My sisters and I with our ringlets and velvet dresses our mom had sewn just for the occassion~our trip to the big store~and Christmas…we share this memory with passion.
    Several elves would greet us, seat us on a miniature train…off we would ride through a musical winter wonderland…to the North Pole~ it was believable!
    At the end of the rode, there HE WAS… seated in his large throne, arms outstretched for the next child(ren).
    They only hired real bearded Santa’s “to help His Honor out.”
    After-all, everything was “real” in the 60’s, even tupperware!
    After sharing our wishes upon his knee, he’d share an everlasting smile for the photograph~ give us all a candy cane, colouring book and small box of crayons. And as if this wasn’t enough…at 10:30am, a number of families would gather in the restaurant, (not a food court), receive a pin with a picture of Santa and a paper crown…wait…the clock moved slowly, then Santa and Mrs. Clause joined us for breakfast! There was silence and the best behavior.Explained, he had to eat quickly, tried to visit every table, bellowed a Merry Christmas, with a HO, HO, HO and returned to his post! Woodward’s, the 60’s and real live bearded Santa’s, Enchantingly Awesome!

    1. you really do love a reminder of Christmas in the middle of the year, don’t you?
      Well, I sure do too=)

  32. My math teacher had a beard, glasses, and belly just like santa. It was awesome except for the dandruff all over his shirt…

  33. one of my familey mebers look just like santa he even winscontests f0r santa

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  38. In his spare time, Santa works at Wal-Mart in Mobile, AL to show that he’s not all hoity toity and all … he does, however, put a lot of kids on the naughty list by working there. I guess it’s to lessen the amount of houses he has to stop at on that “special” night.

  39. I found a real Santa while I attended a conference in Augusta, GA, of all places. He was watering plants and humming to himself. He was happy enough to chat when I said hello. Said it was his part-time job, and he liked taking care of the lovely things. A asked if he made the rounds at the malls near Christmas, and he said no … he’d never want to get paid. He visited all the folks at the nursing home who never had visitors (“So said,” he cooed), and attended lots of parties. He grinned.

    What would we do without the Santas!

  40. My great-uncle was always asked to do the Santa Gigs in his home town. At 56 he had thick, curly white hair and beard. So… when he got laid off he bought the reindeer, trained them to pull a sleigh and worked year round for the next 20 years. A bit disconcerting to see Uncle Ernie as Santa – from grumpy uncle to jolly elf – kinda like finding out your grand dad is a drag queen (don’t ask).

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  42. My family and I were visiting San Francisco one summer and saw “Santa” buying sunglasses from a street vendor. My kids were 3 and 6 at the time, and because of his full beard, they truly believed that it was Santa and he was on vacation too. The man overheard our conversation and began talking to my kids about needing a vacation from all the toy making and asked them if they were a good boy and girl during our holiday. I will never forget their wide eye, jaw dropping faces during this conversation. Thanks Santa for the moment!

  43. I saw Santa yesterday driving a cherry-red volvo with licence plates that read CUDEC24 It was AWESOME!

  44. Santa was on the biggest loser! He’s not fat anymore though and Mrs. Clause wasn’t as jolly as he is

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  47. It’s been a while since the last post so I don’t know if anyone will see this but not only are real Santa’s cool but so are real Elves. I was walking through a mall with my 3y/o daughter, the line was too long to go see Santa so we watched from a distance (she was scared to sit on his knee anyway). As we were leaving the mall (at the furthest exit from Santa) a man came up to us, he was not much taller than my daughter He asked if he could give something to my daughter and reached into a little bag he was carrying and handed her a stuffed dog with a santa hat on it. It was one of those stuffies you buy in support of a charity. He stood and talked with my daughter for half an hour and then off he went. When she turned to wave good bye – he was gone – I kid you not – (probably lost in the crowd). She believes she met a real elf from santa’s workshop, and to this day (10yrs later) that stuffed dog comes out every Christmas and the story of her elf encounter is shared.

  48. larry november 13,,2013 7:53 p.m. I have been playing santa since 1973 in the poughkeepsie,n.y. using hand sewn velveteen suits with real rabbit fur,and leather boots,and used to use humann hair actors beards,now i have grown out my own beard,which is 98% white.this is much better,as most of the santa wigs,and beard sets have horrible features,and never look real,that is why a real bearded santa is best providing he has a great suit ,and real boots ,and a good patent leather belt with a wide brass buckle to go with his real beard.P,S. I have a new red ford transit connect xlt wagon with N.Y. Santa Plates.Holiday Greetings To All Santa Larry Hazard Poughkeepsie,N.Y.

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