Pay is $40 to $60 an hour, but work schedule and background checks keep field thin
For a city that shares the same area code with a place called North Pole and boasts a living, breathing reindeer among its downtown attractions, Anchorage has a ho-ho-ho factor that is surprisingly low-low-low.
For proof, look no farther than the Dimond Center, where the Santa Claus on duty came all the way from New Mexico.
Whether it's because of background checks that thin the field of jolly fat men or the seven-days-a-week requirement of the seasonal job, mall and store managers say there's a Santa shortage in Alaska's largest city.
"It's really hard to find a good Santa, I've got to tell you," said Suzanne Davis, a manager at Nordstrom.
"It's not that easy," said Linda Boggs, manager of the Mall at Sears. "One year we were actually Santa-less."
"We had to bring ours from Gallup, New Mexico," said Mary Fairbanks, marketing director at the Dimond Center.
"I only know of about two or three in town," Northway Mall manager Ron Sassett said.
And they don't come cheap.
Sassett said the going rate ranges from $40 to $60 an hour. The Wall Street Journal reported in a 2002 article that a seven-days-a-week Santa can make $30,000 in a single Thanksgiving-to-Christmas season, while Santas working corporate parties can rake in $500 an hour.
The high price is the big reason why the Northway Mall is making do with a by-appointment-only Santa this year -- a photography store in the mall is offering visits and photos with Santa on a limited schedule.
Part of the cost includes expensive background checks, which have become an absolute must. "They're either pure of heart, or they're not," Boggs said, and the background check helps weed out those who aren't.
That can make the hunt for a red December a challenging one.
Davis said she found Nordstrom's Santa a year ago by calling the VFW. The same man is back this year, although an advertisement seeking a second Santa yielded no worthy choices.
The Mall at Sears contracts the task of finding a Santa to a photography studio. The studio had two lined up for this year, but one canceled at the last minute, and a replacement couldn't be found, Boggs said.
For years, the mall relied on Joe and Bobbi Fagg, a Big Lake couple who owned Santa C. Productions and ran a Santa school to teach men how to look and act the part -- after all, there's only one Santa Claus, and he can only make that all-important list if he has proxies to help.
But Boggs has lost track of the family -- Bobbi died a few years ago, Joe was injured in a wreck and the Santa C. Production phone number is out of service.
"They were very dependable," Boggs said.
But even the dependable Santas come with baggage, and not just the kind stuffed with toys.
"Where does he change? Where does he have his lunch break? It's not like he can just go and eat at the food court," Boggs said.
"One year, we had a karaoke Santa. I was walking through the mall one night and he was singing 'Once, Twice, Three Times a Lady.' ''
The Dimond Center found its Santa through the Noerr Corp., a Colorado business that sends Santas all over the country. This is the first year the mall has tried the company, which -- like a number of Santa providers -- makes money by selling photos.
Noerr sent them Bart Mangum, who explains that he lives at the North Pole, but "Gallup is my summer home."
Mangum is a proud member of the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas, which boasts more than 1,200 members nationwide.
Mangum looks and sounds like the real deal, bellowing a hearty "ho-ho-ho" when little kids walk by. He arrived with two red suits, six shirts and vests, shiny boots and an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Christmas.
He's been doing this for 10 years, and while his travels have taken him to Texas and Louisiana, he never figured he'd wind up so close to Santa's workshop. He's amused that Alaska imported a Santa Claus from New Mexico, and even more amused that there's more snow in Gallup than there is here.
Mangum was scheduled to work in Southern California this year, but that job was canceled. Noerr called soon with a new assignment.
"Where you gonna send me now? The North Pole?" Mangum recalled asking.
"There was this pretty long pause. And then they said, 'Almost.' ''
Find Beth Bragg online at adn.com/contact/bbragg or call 257-4309.
