I have been a professional Santa for over 25 years. My first experience at playing Santa was working for a temp agency getting the job of a mall Santa. It has helped that I have always been very good with children, still being one myself, even today. But let's talk about getting you ready to step into the big boots and be Santa. First you need a Santa outfit, the coat, pants, hat, glasses, padding if you don't have your own, boot spats or plush boot cuffs, if you have your own black boots and gloves. Personally I prefer cotton gloves to nylon, and finally a pair of suspenders to hold those pants up. You will also need a little makeup if you don't have grey to white hair, which can be obtained at most costume shops, just ask for white clown makeup and some red as well. Put a little of the white on your eyebrows, not too much and then smear a small dab under each eye, this helps you to look older. Now take the red makeup and put a small amount on your nose and high on your cheeks and rub it in. Now to set the makeup so it doesn't simply wipe off. Take some baby powder and using a makeup puff apply the powder on to your face and use a makeup brush to wipe away the excess. Now you have white eyebrows and rosy red cheeks with a cherry for a nose. After putting on your makeup, put on your Santa suit stuffer then your pants and use the suspenders to help hold them up. Now put on the beard followed by the wig. At this point I like to put the glasses on and rest them near the tip of my nose so I can look over them. The last two items are the boots and then the gloves.



Accessories for Santa Magic:

Everyone needs some Santa jingle bells, a red plush Santa toy bag and a few simple tricks to entertain the children with. I carry the tricks and a few simple prizes like candy canes or Christmas tracers in a small shoulder bag. The tricks can be purchased at a local magic store. I like to use the magic coloring book, this has 1 page uncolored, the next page is the same picture but colored and then the next page is blank. So flipping the pages from say the top corner would show all the uncolored pages while flipping in the middle would show all the colored ones and flipping from the bottom corner would show all blank pages. So you can have the children help you use Christmas magic to color in some of the pictures. Another great trick is the change bag. This is a bag that has a secret pocket in it. I like placing a pair of red and white mittens in the secret pocket and then a red mitten and a white one in the main part of the bag. The trick is that since your elves gloves do not match, maybe the children can help you fix them. Show them the two solid color mittens and even turn the bag inside out, then have a child put the mittens back in the bag and have everyone say the magic words Merry Christmas and then pull out the two red and white stripped mittens to show that they now match. Thank the children for fixing the gloves and now it's time for them to tell you what they would like for Christmas.