Since the first department stores began hiring people to portray Santa Claus in the late 1800’s, mall Santas have become a staple of American Christmas celebrations. Particularly since The New York Sun was able, following a query from an eight-year-old reader named Virginia O’Hanlan, to bring in the historic scoop that yes, there is a Santa Claus.

In the past 40 years, however, what had been an often informal sort of gig work for department store Santas has boomed into big business — and not without its growing pains. The founder of Hire Santa, Mitch Allen, is probably best known for his appearance in 2018 on ABC’s “Shark Tank” and for his reappearance on the program two weeks ago.

Mr. Allen tells the Sun that the business that landed him on TV, portraying Santa Claus, is booming, especially for “real bearded Santas,” or Santas who grow their own beards. “The industry has changed quite a bit over the past 40 years,” Mr. Allen tells the Sun. “Even though there were real-bearded Santas before then, it was really in the 1980s when most of the Santas became real-bearded.”

Mr. Allen says that over the past 40 years there’s been a trend toward hiring “really authentic real bearded Santa entertainers” and that Santas are doing gigs in homes, at Christmas parties, in offices, and even weddings — much more than the the malls and department stores where one might expect to find Mr. Claus.

“It’s not just the big tree lightings, though we do those, it’s everything down to a Christmas eve visit to a family,” Mr. Allen says.

Since just last year, bookings at Hire Santa are up 152 percent and demand for a hired Santa is up 168 percent over pre-pandemic levels. As of the second week of December, there were still 1,739 open jobs this season for Santas around the country.

According to Hire Santa’s yearly survey of Santas, the plurality of Santas earn between $5,000 and $15,000 a year portraying Saint Nick, with about 15 percent of Santas surveyed making over $15,000 and 38 percent earning under $5,000.

Many of these Santas will attend professional Santa schools, attend conferences, or join local and national organizations that help them learn how to stay sharp in the business of being Santa and hundreds.

Mr. Allen tells the Sun that, by and large, the professionalization of being Santa has been a good thing, with most modern Santas having passed a national background check and being insured. He says that, despite the professionalization, most Santas aren’t in it for the money.

“Most of the Santas that we deal with — and we deal with thousands of — they love being Santa and this is who they identify with,” Mr. Allen tells the Sun. “It’s an awesome opportunity to bring love into people’s Christmas tradition.”

The modern industry, however, had some growing pains, growing pains known colloquially as the “Santa Wars,” which saw Santas slapped with cease and desist orders and the dissolution of multiple international Santa organizations.

The rapid growth of the Santa business in the 1990s led to the formation of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, an organization for Santas that grew their own beards.

In the 1990’s and in the early 2000’s real bearded Santas became in high demand around Christmas time as businesses hosting Santa Claus, and photo companies responsible for setting up Santa visits, began to prefer Santas who grew their own beards over Santas who glue on their beards, normally called “designer bearded Santas.”

The Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, known to insiders as AORB, formed in southern California in 1994 after a group of California Santas were hired to do a catalog and commercial run for a European retailer.

The organization formed almost by accident as word spread among the southern California Santa community that Santas were needed to fill the demands of the company.

One Santa who has been in the Santa business for 37 years, Howard Graham, tells the Sun that back in the day portraying Santa was a less formal business and often Santas in stores were employees, local Santas who advertised in the newspaper, or just people a store owner happened to know. 

Mr. Graham says that he began portraying Santa Claus with his own children as an amateur. He got into the Santa business in 1986, after he was approached by a Cadbury Egg salesman at a Walmart.

“At the time I didn’t realize that Santa itself was a commodity of the Christmas season,” Mr. Graham says.“I got approached by a gentleman at Walmart who asked if I played Santa and I said yes.”

In 1994, the formation of AORBS was as much about creating a social organization as it was about helping organize Santas to fulfill demand. In 2007, an internal dispute at AORBS resulted in the accession of Santa portrayer Nicholas Trolli to the presidency of the organization. The same year, the previous president had officially turned AORBS into a nonprofit.

In 2008, under Mr. Trolli’s leadership an 800 Santa convention slated to occur at Overland Park, a municipality on the Kansas side of Kansas City, fell apart resulting in unpaid debts for the organization.

According to a 2013 OC Weekly exposé, Mr. Trolli then attempted to register AORBS as a for profit operation in Kentucky. Some members complained to the state’s attorney general. The fiasco eventually resulted in a cease and desist order against the for profit version of AORBS from the Pennsylvania Secretary of the Commonwealth, due to illegitimate solicitation of charitable giving.

The damage, however, was already done and most members had left AORBS to form the Fraternal Order of Real bearded Santas and eventually the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, which both exist to this day. 

Throughout the drama of multiple Santa brotherhoods and orders coming and going, some real bearded Santas had let the demand for real bearded Santas, as opposed to designer bearded Santas, go to their heads, according to the president of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, Stephen Arnold.

“Malls couldn’t find real bearded Santas,” Mr. Arnold tells the Sun. “Real bearded Santas kind of got snooty and thought that they were better than designer bearded Santas.”

At the same time, Mr. Arnold says that designer bearded Santas thought that real bearded Santas were “taking the mystery and joy out of portraying Santa” by looking like Santa year round.

Some of the distrust within the Santa community stems from incidents like the implosion of AORBS. Mr. Arnold says that when in 2012, he first joined the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas in, some members and leaders were concerned that he might be too ambitious.

“I will tell you that when I first joined the organization and ran for office, the president was concerned that I wanted to join to try to take over the organization,” Mr. Arnold tells the Sun. At the time professional organizations for real bearded Santas did not admit designer bearded Santas or people who might portray other Christmans themed characters like elves, or Mrs. Claus.

As a result, it would be even harder for designer bearded Santas to get gigs portraying Santa because real bearded Santas have insurance provided by organizations like IBRB and have all passed a background check.

Mr. Arnold says that this stretched into the 2010’s, with the issue coming to a head at a 2018 convention where an International Santa Claus Hall of Fame inductee, Bruce Templeton, gave what Mr. Arnold described as a moving speech to the conference that he says helped Santas bury the hatchet once and for all.

“The important thing is that the Santa world has recognized that there are two different types of Santas and there is a place for both of them,” Mr. Arnold says. “We’ve learned to have respect for each other.”

The International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas, now the largest Santa professional organization in the world, admits both real and designer bearded Santas, Mrs. Clauses, and others as associate members, who are afforded the most important benefits of being a member, like discounted background checks and insurance, and are also expected to pay less in dues.

“There was some real animosity both situations but it has cooled off,” Mr. Arnold says, adding that these days most Santas still working in the industry wouldn’t even be aware that the “Santa Wars” had even happened.