Santa skills

Do you want to be a great Santa Claus? Here’s a list of what Santa Rick says it takes. And yes, he checked it twice:

Love: “You have to love people of all ages.”

WHERE:

JenCare Senior

DATE:

• October 19, October 25

• November 2, November 8

• November 15, November 30

TIME:

• December 6, December 7 10:00 AM & 2:00 PM

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■ Acceptance: “Accept (almost) anything you hear. Santa’s a forgiving guy. People make mistakes. Things happen.”

■ Ability to think on your feet: “You have to know how to respond to situations. You usually just have two minutes with people.”

Economic awareness: The big bucks are only at the North Pole. “Everybody hears ‘Santas make great money,’ but that’s not true. Most make $5,000 to $15,000 a year at most. They usually supplement their pay with Social Security.”

■ Sacrifice: “Time, emotions and money.”

■ Education: “Constantly.”

■ Encourage innocence and imagination: “So children of all ages can see there’s a bright world out there. If you have those two things, you can survive and thrive.”

■ Stay current: “When somebody asks me for a widget, I may not know what it is, but I have to act like I know about it.”

Rosenthal said.

“I always say ‘Santa loves you,’ and you hug them if you can,” he said, of the people who come to visit with him. “You usually only have two to five minutes with each person. …In those two minutes you want to make someone feel they’ve been heard, they’ve been loved.”

To do that well, for Rosenthal, means education. Constant, yearround and life-long. That can be as simple, he said, as standing in front of a mirror and practicing a face laugh and a belly laugh or taking acting, juggling, magic or even modeling classes.

Or, of course, enrolling in a Santa school, something Rosenthal still does religiously. He attends several schools around the country as a student every year, despite his decades of experience.

He and his wife Tracy recently returned to Atlanta from their second trip to the 81-year-old Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland, Mich. “Charles Howard is a very inspiring and refreshing school. …They don’t talk business at all. It’s just about being Santa and having a good time,” Rosenthal said. “When you come out of there, you’re ready to take on the season.”

‘I

deal

with Santas all day long’

Tracy, who married Rosenthal in 2013 after a 20-year friendship, is no Mrs. Claus. “He’s much younger than me at heart,” she said.

She’s more of what she calls a

“restaurant widow,” stepping away or heading without him to the car when Rosenthal, even in plain clothes, is inevitably approached by children. She said she doesn’t want to ruin the Santa mystique or tarnish Santa’s reputation.

“I am not a Mrs. Claus, and I’m also about 15 years younger than him,” she said. “I don’t want any confusion about ‘why is Santa with this woman.’ ”

Formerly in the corporate world, Tracy runs their National Santa Agency, booking holiday characters for everything from studio photo shoots to birthdays, anniversaries and other private, community and corporate events. Their Santas deliver presents and cars and marriage proposals and visit with patients in hospitals and hospices.

“I deal with Santas all day long,” Tracy said. “It’s enjoyable and there’s never a dull moment.”

One of their Santas is Lawrenceville resident Larry Talbert, owner of Talbert Insurance Services in Duluth. Talbert enrolled at Northern Lights after Rosenthal was the third Santa he’d met who told him he ought to join their ranks.

Since 2016, he’s been “Santa Magic,” incorporating his amateur magic skills into his Santa work and teaching magic as a guest instructor at Northern Lights. His wife, Marjorie, who had also encouraged him to become Santa, joined him at Santa school and is his Mrs. Claus. Talbert said she was an elf for the Atlanta Braves’ Christmas in July event last summer.

She said she enjoys telling children about Santa while they wait in line to see him, and “loves taking care of Santa and making sure that he stays healthy.”

“My favorite thing is the way the kids look at you,” said Talbert, 54. “They all love you. That happens continuously.”

“Santa Jeaux,” 70, is another Northern Lights alumnus and guest instructor. He said he became a Santa because he loves to bring laughter and joy to people of all ages.

He is one of the Santas who visits children every Christmas morning at Egleston Hospital. He also does live video chats with children there and at Scottish Rite Hospital twice in December.

Hospital visits can be difficult, Rosenthal said. “God forbid you have a child who’s dying,” he said.

“They wouldn’t invite a stranger in, but they’d invite Santa in, and he comes.”