Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas: Bringing Joy to a Tough Year

Show Notes

On the season finale of This is Growing Old, Sue Peschin talks with Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas Chairman Ric Erwin and President Bob Callahan about why Santas would make for good messengers for promoting the COVID-19 vaccine, how Santas are bringing hope during a difficult year, and why they say real beards are better. 

Learn more about the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas here.

Episode Transcript

Sue Peschin:

Hi there. I’m Sue Peschin, President and CEO of the Alliance for Aging Research, and you’re listening to our podcast, This Is Growing Old. Today we have two special guests, Santas Ric Erwin and Bob Callahan from the Fraternal Order Of Real Bearded Santas. Santas Rick and Bob, thank you for being on today.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Thank you for having us.

Santa Bob Callahan:

Thank you for having us.

Sue Peschin:

Absolutely. First, how have you both been coping during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Santa Ric Erwin:

Staying hunkered down and healthy the best we can.

Santa Bob Callahan:

That’s what me and Mrs. Claus are doing here. We stay at home a lot. Just a couple of our family members come visit us. That’s all we get to see.

Sue Peschin:

Yep. Yep. It’s a big issue, especially for a lot of us as we’re growing older, right, to be able to be safe and follow the recommendations. So, tell everybody who’s listening a little bit more about the Fraternal Order Of Real Bearded Santas.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Well, I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version. We began with a commercial in 1994, 10 professional actors and Santas were selected for a commercial for a German Cadillac giant, and the theme of the commercial was Santa is going to need help delivering everything in our catalog this year and so they hired 10 Santas for the commercial. And as they were sitting around between shoots, the gentlemen had such a good time chatting with each other they set up a lunch date for the following January, and then somebody in the group decided that they needed a name. So since they’d all responded to a casting call, which included the phrase, “Must have own suit and real beard,” they decided to call themselves the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas. And that rather whimsical name stuck for a decade until the group grew to such an extent that we had to form a 501C, a board of directors and everything else.

Santa Ric Erwin:

And since we were forming a 501C7, which is a professional fraternity, we thought it was a convenient time to change the name to The Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas. But Bob can tell you why we think the real bearded designation still is important in the world.

Santa Bob Callahan:

We think all Santas are wonderful and in truth they are, but we live with a beard on 365 days a year. So everywhere you go, all year long, you’re on display. People recognize you as Santa, so we feel that people that live with this all year round, deserve an organization of their own, organizations that allow Santas that pin beards on their ears and Mrs. Clauses’ and all, but we have exclusively and forever actual voting members will be members with real beards.

Sue Peschin:

I love it. I love it. It’s great because you probably bring a lot of happiness to people all year round and we need it now more than we’ve ever needed it. Right? So you all were recently in the news and we also saw you at a CDC meeting feature because the Department of Health And Human Services canceled a plan to vaccinate Santas early. And the idea behind it was that Santa would promote the benefits of the COVID-19 vaccine. Why do you think Santas are the ideal candidates for getting vaccinated earlier and as messengers for promoting the vaccine?

Santa Ric Erwin:

Well, before we answer that, I’d like to add that the blueprint that we offered the CDC at the ACIP meeting, was actually the same blueprint that we used in 2009, when we saved Christmas from the H1N1 epidemic that year. We were able to persuade the CDC and other authorities to look the other way, if you will, while we gained access to tier 1B access to the vaccines. And by example, I went to Kaiser on November 18, which was a full month before tier 3 released and using… armed only with the letter to the CDC, I persuaded the doctors to vaccinate me and then I posted online so other Santas around the country could follow my example. And collectively we were able to inoculate enough Santas that year to cover every major corporate and municipal event and countless private parties were saved as well.

Santa Ric Erwin:

So when I addressed the Advisory Committee For Immunological Protocols, we were actually presenting them with a plan that we already knew would work. And when the undersecretary for public relations called us, his proposal was to use us for a 32 city rollout for Operation Warp Speed in which we would provide professional Santas and/or Mrs. Clauses to persuade the local news, media markets to go get your vaccine as soon as possible.

Sue Peschin:

That’s a great idea. And also, I mean, not to mention it’s also flu season. But tell us a little bit more about why you think you guys make for good messengers. I mean, I have some thoughts in my own head, but what’s your thinking and how would you have approached it?

Santa Bob Callahan:

Santa would give them hope and some joy. There’s so much depression and despair and if Santa could be out there and give them hope that wonderful things are still going to happen and it’d be wonderful things for kids that have been deprived of birthday parties and so very much that Santa Claus would be a ray of hope and it would lift the spirits of the whole country if they could let us be Santa.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Well, the reason we’re the perfect spokesperson in my opinion is, to the young at heart, Santa represents faith, hope and charity, and that’s during the good times. And right now, times aren’t good for very many people. America has suffered an entire generation of harm in just a few short months, and this is going to be by far the darkest year in adult memory. And if we have any hope of ending a bad year on a good note, it’s going to rest in the hands of Santa and Christmas in general. And the less likely a traditional Christmas becomes where families can gather freely and children can sit on Santa’s lap and things like that, the more likely it becomes that Santa is going to be the key to rescuing the American psyche before the end of the year.

Sue Peschin:

I love it. Well said, both of you. So unfortunately, getting your picture taken in person with Santa is probably going to be out of the question in most places, if not all this year. Are there other ways that people can safely visit Santa during the COVID-19 pandemic?

Santa Bob Callahan:

Okay, well, you can tell them about cyber Santas.

Santa Ric Erwin:

I will.

Santa Bob Callahan:

But I work at South Coast Plaza, an upscale place that has two Santa chairs traditionally. And one side they’re going to put Santa in a snow globe and have a winter wonderland, and when they come through, at the end of the winter wonderland, Santa will be there and they can talk with the kids and wave to them and the parents can take pictures on their own. And on the other side, where I will be working, they’ve set up a plexiglass. I haven’t seen it yet.

Santa Bob Callahan:

Plexiglass room as near as I can tell, that the child can come up pretty close to Santa, tell Santa what they want, and they’ll have a microphone and a speaker and Santa will have a microphone and speaker on their side and the child can tell Santa what they want and then there’s going to be a bench in front of Santa where just the child or the child’s whole family can sit there with Santa right behind them and then they take the picture there. Santa is right in the picture with them, even if they’re not on his lap, they’re right there. And the plexiglass won’t show.

Santa Ric Erwin:

I’d like to also interject here that FORBS publishes a quarterly newsletter and in June, I instructed the editorial staff to preempt the summer issue with a special edition. And we invited the titans of our industry to come together and round table some suggestions for what Christmas might look like this season and whether Santa was going to be there or not.

Santa Ric Erwin:

And of course, nobody really had any clear idea of what things were going to look like in three months or six months. So we were all blue sky and some fairly creative ideas were born from these gentlemen and this client that they serve. Bob hit on a couple of them. I think that the in-person Santa events are going to boil down to three categories. There’s going to be the separate sets with a green screen or blue screen backgrounds and the clients and the performers will be digitally merged for the resulting video or photo. Then there’s the plexiglass option where the clients and the performer will be physically separated by an air proof barrier. And then my personal favorite is the idea… because it blends in a story which the children can get behind it, explain Santa being behind the plexiglass or the bubble, because he was accidentally trapped in a snow globe by an elf magician’s accident.

Santa Ric Erwin:

And I find that so creative and the children find it so engaging that I’m not surprised that the idea has exploded and there are variants of it across the country right now. I personally canceled almost all of my in-person calendar… back in June I began informing my clients and my agents that if we did not have both a safe, reliable vaccine by Thanksgiving and a proven therapeutic in case all prophylactics failed and I somehow contracted the disease anyway, that I would not be conducting in-person events this year and in mid-October I began triggering that clause in all of my contracts and canceling everything. The good news is that some of my larger corporate and municipal clients pivoted immediately to alternatives. The city of Laguna Niguel for instance, changed our 12th annual tree lighting ceremony into a winter wonderland drive-thru that will end with a near path to the tree and the Claus couple waving from a safe distance.

Santa Ric Erwin:

And I just found out yesterday that one of my largest corporate clients, Taco Bell headquarters, has decided to preempt our annual event with the children and employees with a drive-through also with Santa at a safe distance. So everybody’s pivoting to various solutions, and some of them are very creative. And although this will be one of many lists in this country with an asterisk next to the 2020 entry, there will still be a Christmas this year and to a large degree, Santa will be there.

Sue Peschin:

That’s great. And that’s actually a good segue to my next question, which is, everybody is talking about how the holidays are going to be different this year. And many people are feeling really hopeless. So what message of hope do both of you as Santa have for the listeners this holiday season? And Bob, I know you have something to say.

Santa Bob Callahan:

Well, I wanted to add to what Ric said. I think the biggest thing that’s going to happen this year is cyber visits with the children. And there’re several companies, probably the biggest one out there is JingleRing that the companies will contact mom and the children and get information about the children, feed that information to Santa, and then set up a meeting. I’m not sure if they’re using Zoom or Google or Skype, but anyway, the digital backdrops that the Santas can use plus a real backdrops that the Santas can use and they can have a visit with the children and be very personal and say, “Oh, Ms. Jones says that you need to do your homework,” or something like that. That Santa will have some very creative information, and it’ll make for some really good visits that this has happening in cyber space this year.

Santa Ric Erwin:

A virtual visitation, I believe, is going to be here to stay. It has exploded this year and there are… even now new options are coming up. I was, just two weeks ago, I was approached by another startup company that normally produces concerts across the country and their idea was to rent out some of those unused arenas across the country and set up virtual sets so that they can actually sell a tour of Santa’s North Pole Village to the clients. They’ll get an elf… we’ll conduct them on the tour and they’ll visit the reindeer barn and Mrs. Clause’s bakery and the North Pole Postal Annex, and a couple of other sites. And then they’ll drop into Santa’s office for a visit with the big guy himself. And I think that was so creative that I decided to go with their offer instead of a couple of others, but their virtual visitations are going to be here to stay, only because it allows family members from around the country to participate at the same time.

Sue Peschin:

Yeah. That’s a brilliant idea, I think. What do you think are some of the top services that you can tell our listeners? Because we have a lot of grandparents that tune in, and I think it’s especially nice for grandparents who might not be in the same city as their grandchildren. And to your point, a whole bunch of people in the family can participate in the visit together. So what are the services that you would call out?

Santa Ric Erwin:

Bob mentioned JingleRing. They definitely have a headstart in this year’s race, but from sheer investment alone, Santa, The Experience, which is the outfit I was just telling you about, based on their experience and their investment, I believe that they’re going to be a big player in the game again this year. There’s a third outfit, at least one more outfit that I know calling itself, Virtual Santa and there are undoubtedly others, but I think JingleRing and Santa, The Experience are going to be the big players this year.

Sue Peschin:

Great. Thank you for the letting us know. So going back to the question that I just asked, what messages of hope do you have for listeners this year?

Santa Ric Erwin:

Santa provides an additional element to the context that children will try to perceive the world around them through, rather than trying to understand the world from the parents’ concept, they will look for another context in which they can accept what’s going on and understand it. And Santa is a perfect spokesman for that age group, for that demographic. And if he can project an image of calm and steady confidence in the future, then the children will also. As I mentioned earlier, Santa to the young at heart, Santa represents faith, hope and charity.

Sue Peschin:

When you were a kid, both of you, what did you imagine growing older would be like?

Santa Bob Callahan:

Well, when I was a kid, I thought mom and dad were old. Because I had a grandma and grandpa. They seemed really happy. I was looking forward to it as just a progression of life of growing up and having a family like my folks did and becoming a grandpa like my grandparents did. I never really thought much about it, but it was just the way that I believe that the world would be.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Well, I was born and raised in the deep south. I was raised in the woods basically. And we were so poor that we didn’t have reliable healthcare and pretty much if we ate anything, when I was growing up, we either pulled it out of the ground or killed it ourselves. So I think growing old was something that I didn’t think about that much because there weren’t as many old people in my orbit as there might’ve been in more affluent segments of the country. 45 was starting to call yourself old and by 60 you were probably a memory.

Sue Peschin:

That’s really two different experiences and I think that’s good for people to hear because a lot of people relate on both sides there. So what do you enjoy most now about growing older?

Santa Ric Erwin:

Bob?

Santa Bob Callahan:

It has to be family because growing old, your finding growing old is not for the faint-hearted and my wife and I have a good number of issues with… she’s 80, I’m 82. We have six kids, with their spouses makes 12, nine grandchildren with their spouses is another 18. That’s 30. And then I have 10 great-grandchildren. So our immediate family is 40 people.

Sue Peschin:

That’s wonderful.

Santa Bob Callahan:

And the joy in this age is watching people make decisions, make mistakes, overcome them and just watch as each one of them grow and… just got a new baby four months ago, the 10th great-grandchild. And it’s just a kick just to get how little they are and how fast they grow. Life with the family is wonderful and we’re swamped with love.

Sue Peschin:

That’s good.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Well, in my mind, I’m still 20-something. Just stuns me every time I wander past the mirror or my wife tells me how old I am. I just don’t have that much of a concept of aging. It’s just, I love life so much and every day life offers so many new experiences. Any day that I learn something new is a good day and I keep having good days, so. I just don’t feel like I’m getting old yet. Of course, I’m a whipper snapper compared to Bob. I’m only 63. So, by the time I reach his rarefied age, maybe I will feel a little more responsible and sober.

Sue Peschin:

I love it. That’s great. Good. So for my last question, and we touched on this a little bit, but I want to know, why do you both feel real beards are better?

Santa Bob Callahan:

First, let me say this. And I don’t know where Ric was at, but I know we started out with a ratty old suit and I did too and hanging whiskers on my ears.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Me too. I started out with a designer beard.

Santa Bob Callahan:

And the children loved me just as much then as they do now. The children will go to some company picnic and they got some guy with some godawful looking beard and a ratty old suit and yell, it’s Santa. So that works for them. But when the kids get a little bit older and questioning, for that group of people, when mom looks at Santa and goes, “Oh my God!” the kids relate to this. And this gets an older group of kids still believing in Santa with a real beard and in truth, they take better pictures and more… but that’s about it. That’s really why they’re better.

Santa Ric Erwin:

No, Bob you’re absolutely right. The younger the child, the less important it is. The child will respond to the iconic character regardless of who’s portraying him. But I think that our job is to bring to life the fictional character. And a fictional character, which has morphed through the generations and who is more than ever before a consensus, basically. We agree on what Santa is supposed to be now. And it’s our job to personify that fictional character. And as Bob said, the older the child gets, the more it helps to have that realistic personification.

Sue Peschin:

Yeah. And it also sounds like both of you are speaking to authenticity and I think authenticity is an important value that sometimes we lose sight of.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Grab my beard, I can show pain instead of surprise, when it comes off.

Santa Bob Callahan:

Authenticity and the right things to say and stuff is all benefits of belonging to an organization like ours, where we exchange ideas and share our experiences with some kids that ask some really tough questions. “I want daddy to come back for Christmas,” or “I miss my grandpa.” “I’m sick, Santa, and I don’t know what’s going to happen.” And some of the kids will make you almost cry. And some of the questions are really, really tough and it’s really a good thing to have an organization where people can gain insight and answers and we work with each other and everybody tries to look like they themselves are the real Santa.

Sue Peschin:

That’s great. I think that what I’m taking away from this is what you all bring to the table is a sense of connection, a sense of authenticity and a sense of awe. And those are all things that I think we need this holiday season, the rest of the year, the year coming up. We just need what you have to offer and that’s a lot of hope. So thank you so much for what you both do and what your whole group does.

Santa Ric Erwin:

Thank you so much.

Santa Bob Callahan:

Thank you. Don’t forget to write your letter.

Sue Peschin:

Absolutely. I will.

Santa Bob Callahan:

This year, remember there’s only one Z in Benz and none in Mercedes.

Sue Peschin:

I just wrote that down. All right. Santa Bob and Santa Rick. Thank you for joining us today.

Sue Peschin:

Thank you so much for listening to season one of This Is Growing Old. We’ll be back for more conversations about the common human experience of aging on January 27, 2021. In the meantime, the Alliance for Aging Research is here to help you and the older adults in your life stay safe and connected this holiday season. And I’m going to close off season one by sharing a few tips for doing just that. So, our first tip is to check in on your older neighbors. They may not have friends or family close by to help. Go and offer to help run errands or schedule a grocery delivery so that they can stay home and avoid holiday crowds. Our next tip is to call the older adults in your life. Many older adults prefer to communicate by phone rather than email and text. Taking the time to call and check in on someone can brighten their day and hearing their voice can alert you if something’s wrong.

Sue Peschin:

FaceTime’s also great. I do that all the time with my mom. Another tip is to schedule virtual FaceTime. There we go. We all miss seeing each other in person and want to continue sharing moments and milestones. Scheduling time to video chat or sharing photos and videos by text, email, or through a Wi-Fi enabled digital frame can help keep us connected to those who can’t safely see the person. My next tip is to enjoy a virtual activity together. The older adults in our lives have so much knowledge and love to share with us. Invite them to do a virtual story time or ask them to teach you a family recipe for a virtual cook-a-thon and you get a meal out of it. Many streaming services are offering the ability to do a virtual movie night as well.

Sue Peschin:

And finally, I encourage you to share information from a trusted source. With all the misinformation out there and the attacks that we’ve seen on science this year, it’s really crucial to rely on trusted and evidence-based sources.

Sue Peschin:

The Alliance has a number of COVID specific resources for you and your loved ones, including a fact sheet on staying safe at home during the coronavirus crisis. You can find this information at agingresearch.org/COVID. And the last thing I want to say to everybody out there, if you haven’t gotten your annual flu shot yet, get it today. And as soon as the COVID-19 vaccine becomes available to you, go and get it. We all need to participate. We all need to count on each other to get it done, to protect ourselves, our families and the broader community.

Sue Peschin:

I hope you find these tips helpful. I wish all of you a healthy and meaningful holiday season. We hope you’ll tune in to the second season of This Is Growing Old on January 27, 2021. Take care, everyone.