Life Behind the Beard

Santa Clauses interviewed on the street and in department stores last week admitted that they were not the same man who sources say rides from the North Pole around Christmastime.

With that information out in the open, pretenders to the sleigh both in Boston and New York discussed their lives behind the beard more freely.

Santas have different reasons for donning a bright red suit and stuffing themselves with pillow to freeze on a windy sidewalk or overheat in a stuffy department store. But all of them have an answer to the age-old question. "Santa, how did you come over from Filene's so quickly."

Anthony Caracciolo, who works the 3-to-7 shift on Jordan Marsh's fifth floor, says he tried to bluff the first time he heard that question. "Now it's easier just to say you and the other Santas are Santa's helpers," he explains. A 63-year-old retired civil servant in his rookie season in the red uniform. Caracciolo says, "Being a Santa is one of the things I have always wanted to do in my life. I'm getting paid $4.50 an hour, but I'd gladly do it for $3.50."

Mike Wallace, who works weekends at Jordan Marsh, sees the job's finances differently: "If they knew how much I loved to be Santa, Jordan's would charge me $50 an hour to do it," he says. The 71-year-old Wallace has worked for J.M. for seven years. But he says he has been a Santa ever since, being pudgy "he was volunteered for a company Christmas party 20 years ago. Now he also suits up during the week at local shopping centers. I would love to say I take a sleigh all over Boston, but in reality I usually use public transportation," he explains.

Wilfred Figueroa, a butcher from the Bronx, recently spent what he called "his first and only day" as Santa overlooking Rockefeller Center, soliciting donations for the Volunteers of America. The stint was a favor for a friend who couldn't do it that day. Figueroa explains, as he sits in costume ringing a bell while early holiday shoppers walk by. Doing this is fun, though it's bit cold," he says. "But this is something people should do at least once." He notes, however, that there are some restrictions Santas have to abide by. "I tried to catch a smoke on my break, but parents would look at me, so I stopped."

Many other Volunteers of America Santas on the streets of New York are former or current residents of the organization's settlement house for destitute men. Arthur Johnson is one such resident. "The Volunteers are helping me out so I help them out," he says. Another member of the house, who would only identify himself as Fred, said he was dressing up as Santa to pick up some extra money before his next unemployment check. One special pleasure of the job. Fred said, is competing for donations with the non-Santa-dressed Salvation Army.

Many Santas take pride in their individual in-store or on-street technique When Caracciolo gets a tough gift request, he says he tries to avoid raising any hopes. "But you want to simultaneously nudge the parents if it seems to be within their means," he adds.

Of course, that cannot always be the case Jeff Bellin, a Filene's Santa who recently graduated from Tufts and now hopes to enter a managerial training program, says he has some requests that he just couldn't handle. "Last week a teenage girl sat in his lap and asked for a boyfriend Bellin, in his best North Pole accent, recommended some sleaze bars downtown." But later that day, Bellin was reduced to silence when a five-year-old girl asked for a Ferrari Bellin says his key to success is making both parents and children laugh, but he adds. "That's not very difficult with disco renditions of Christmas carols blaring in the back ground.

For prospective lap-formers who are unsure about how to handle their responsibilities. Western Temporaries, which hires most of the Boston-area department store Santas, offers a quick introductory training course. A 25-minute film goes over the do's and dont's of the business.

For instance:

* Never promise, only say you'll do your best to get a gift.

* Never call the child's escorts parents, because they might not be.

* Never say ho. ho. ho.

* Never call yourself I, only Santa.

On the positive side, Western instructs all its prospective Santas to tell children to pick up their toys in their rooms and behave nicely.

A Santa stationed outside of Manhattan's Bloomingdale's for the Volunteers of America never received such a training "I don't say anything to anyone--if they're going to give, they'll give," he says, identifying himself only as a professional truck driver. "Poor people tend to give more because they know what it's like to need," he adds.

But even such a spirited avocation has its drawbacks. Raymond Podetti, an unemployed ship-worker, says that in addition to the cold outside and the heat inside, "sometimes standing there saying the same thing to every kid gets pretty boring." Bellin compares the job to acting: "You have to be up constantly," he says. "Occasionally you get stale."

But most Santas are cheerful about the role they play each winter. Wallace stresses the importance of keeping the idea of Santa Claus in the 'minds of kids for as long as possible--"They will face this harsh, ugly world soon enough," he says. "If I can keep one more kid believing in Santa Claus another year it will be all worth it. I say every year this will be the last, but sure enough I'm always back in the sleigh."