Santa Claus school preps jolly ol’ Saint Nicks for the pros

Susen Mesco got into the Santa Claus business in 1983 with photo operations at a couple of local malls. “We did such a good job that, the next year, I had 14 malls,” she says. “I would rotate five or six Santas in one mall, so we’d switch Santas every four hours. We were seeing eight, 900 children a day.”

Mesco branded her yuletide operation as American Events and Promotions (AEP), and her Professional Santa Claus School was a big differentiator from the beginning. In four decades, the school has snowballed from “six guys sitting on my three-person couch and a chalkboard” into “about 50 to 60 guys per year” at the Delta Hotel in Northglenn.

“It just took on a life of its own and just grew and expanded,” says the Lafayette-based Mesco. “I’ve now got 5,600 Santas across the country.”

For tuition that starts at $850, students receive 180 hours of training on topics ranging from marketing to insurance. “They do almost 100 of those hours before they even come to the five-day conference,” she says. “Over the years, I’ve written 153 classes for my Santas, ranging from sign language to Spanish to working with autistic children to handling children who’ve been through mass shootings and natural disasters. How do you walk 50 feet with a reindeer without getting your eye poked out?”

About half of the students come from outside of Colorado. Mesco still places local graduates at a few locations where she runs the Santa operations, but most of AEP’s business is now corporate and private events.

Much else has changed in the Santa business since the 1980 when the most expensive suit was about $150, Mesco says. “There is no longer the guy that goes to Party City and buys a $25 suit and a $10 beard and straps it on and grabs a slug of Jack Daniels. That’s not what people want anymore. They want a top-of-the-line, good-looking Santa with white eyelashes and a real beard.”

And that isn’t cheap: “Custom-made suits start around $3,500 and then you add a parade rope for another $4,000 or $5,000,” she says. “Their leather boots are somewhere between $600 and $800. Their belts are $400 or $500, a belt buckle is $1,400. It can be $3,000 to take care of their beards all year long.”

Today’s Santa Claus commands top dollar

That means today’s Santas command top dollar, especially in the 2024 and 2025 holiday seasons when there are only three weekends. Mesco advises booking next year’s holiday parties before summer. “Pretty much any time after June, if you call for Santa on a weekend, he probably isn’t available,” she says.

Patrick Howard, an IT professional who lives in Aurora, has portrayed Santa for friends and family for 30 years, then attended Mesco’s school in 2023. “It was always for fun,” Howard says. “I knew there was more to it, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know.”

Howard likens his education to a child learning to play piano: “For 30 years, I was a one-handed Santa. There was so much I didn’t know that Susen taught in the class. It was well worth my time.”

He now has a real beard, five suits (including one for locations with pets). He wears makeup and plans to portray Santa even more as a “retirement gig” in a decade or so.

“Last year was my first year as a professional,” says Howard, who says he probably brought in $500 in tips in 30 years as an amateur Santa. “Last year was a break-even year: I paid for the school, I bought the suits,” he says. “This year, I expect to make enough to take the wife on a nice vacation.”