Instilling the Santa Spirit

Instilling the Santa Spirit

Tom Valent places his hands over his red sweater and chuckles a deep, rich laugh, "Ho, ho, ho!" With a twinkle in his eyes, he urges his students to give it a try, but instructs, "Not too loud. You don’t want to scare the little ones."

Soon the room echoes with the merry ho-ho-hos of dozens of Santas in the making—some sporting full white beards, others clean-shaven, many with tummies that won’t require any additional padding come Christmas. These aspiring Saint Nicks have gathered in Midland, Mich. (pop. 41,685), where they are learning the tools of the trade from Valent, dean of the Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School, the oldest Santa school in the nation.

For three days each October, Valent teaches 50 Santas from across the United States and Canada everything they need to know about portraying the beloved Christmas icon. The curriculum includes the history of St. Nicholas and Santa Claus, proper dress and hygiene, how to handle media interviews, reindeer facts, and how to tell stories. He also educates on how to work with different groups of children, including babies, kids in the hospital, and children with physical and mental disabilities. The $300 tuition includes classes, field trips to Toys ‘R’ Us and Bronner’s Christmas Wonderland in Frankenmuth, Mich. (pop. 4,838), and a closing banquet during which students receive their official red Santa hat.

"People want to believe in Santa. Santa stands for all good things," says Valent, a 54-year-old engineer, whose job for most of the year is executive vice president of Gerace Construction, a Midland-area general contractor.

Valent brings 28 years of Santa experience to his role as head of the Santa Claus School. Along with guest speakers, Valent and his wife, Holly, try to impart Charles W. Howard’s belief that "to be Santa is a privilege, not a job."

Howard was a Macy’s department store Santa and consultant for the 1947 Christmas film Miracle on 34th Street. He began teaching Santa Claus School in his Albion, N.Y., barn in 1937. When Howard retired in 1966, his successor moved the school to Bay City, Mich.

Valent, who took up the Santa persona after the birth of his first child, began attending Santa classes in 1976. In 1987, he took over leadership of the school and moved it to Midland, where his construction company had been commissioned by the Midland Area Community Foundation to build a permanent Santa House for the community’s holiday festivities.

"Walking into the school for the first time takes your breath away," says John "Jolly" Rhodes, a Flint, Mich., resident who attended the school in 2002 and 2003. "There’s so much to take in; it’s hard to experience it all."

More than 700 aspiring Santas have learned their craft from Valent over the last 17 years. They have fed Comet and Cupid, Valent’s pet reindeer; learned how to properly place a child upon their lap, and soaked up the "Santa spirit" amidst the holiday trappings of the Santa House—complete with 7-foot-tall nutcrackers and animatronic elves playing a piano.

Valent dons his own Santa suit each year as part of Midland’s free Christmas celebration, where he and four other Santa school graduates welcome 20,000 children. The holiday season begins on the Tuesday after Thanksgiving when Valent leads a parade up Main Street to the Midland County Courthouse, where he receives the keys to the Santa House and oversees the lighting of the town’s Christmas decorations. Then he takes his seat and greets children of all ages, eager to share their Christmas wishes.

"My time with that child may be the most important minute of the year for them," Valent says. "My goal is to get them to feel the Santa spirit."

Rick Hyman, a retired federal employee from Snellville, Ga. (pop. 15,351), says he learned more in three days at the school last fall than he did during 30 years of playing Santa.

"I learned that the suit doesn’t make the Santa," Hyman says. "Santa Claus comes from your heart—you can’t do it any other way. When Tom puts on his Santa suit, he is Santa Claus. He lives the Santa spirit every day."

Elizabeth Johnson is a freelance writer in Lansing, Mich.

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