Today we’d like to introduce you to Randy Baker.
Hi Randy, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
First of all I wouldn’t have a story if it wasn’t for my father. My father loved children and he passed that love down to me. Our house was always the center of activity with the children of the small town that i grew up in. It was the center of activity because my father would always be there leading/participating with all of the neighborhood children. Because of my father, I have always loved children, in fact I feel that I communicate with children better than adults.
So two events occurred that got me into portraying Santa Claus. The first “event” was in late December of 2022, my daughter asked me if I had the Santa suit that I had used once for a church group about 8 years prior. She had gotten busy with my two young granddaughters and didn’t get a chance to get their photo taken with Santa Claus. The church had loaned me their suit along with a fake beard and thus I didn’t have it. Not sure if my granddaughters ever got their photo taken with Santa that year but this gave me the initial idea of portraying Santa Claus.
The second event, was that I retired at the end of February of 2023 and I knew I needed something to occupy my time. I remember the situation with my granddaughters and Santa Claus and I thought that I would really enjoy portraying Santa Claus. I love children and I could become my granddaughters’ Santa. However, if I was going to do this, I wanted to make sure I was the best Santa Claus that I could be and I started to look into professional Santa Claus schools.
It is unbelievable the number of Santa Claus schools there are out there. After doing some research, I decided to attend The Professional Santa Claus School of Denver (PSCS), founded by Susen Mesco in 1983. It offered a 5-day in-person seminars and online courses running from February to August, training performers to perform as Santa Claus. I also decided that I didn’t want a fake beard so I started to grow a beard for the first time beginning in April hoping that it would come in in time for the 2023 holiday season.
My older brother loaned me some money so that I could buy a decent Santa suit and accessories. My neighbor down the street was into woodworking and he built me a portable Santa chair. I created Look, it’s Santa! LLC and I was in business with my own web site that I created. At this point it was late October 2023 and I was trying to book Santa gigs on my own using social media and my Santa web site. It was at this point that a good friend of mine told me about a friend of his that also portrayed Santa Claus and I should ask him about how to get Santa gigs. This Santa pointed me to Red Santa Organization based out of Austin and they provided professional Santas. I contacted Deb Parsons of Red Santa Organization and after a short interview, she added me to her list of Santas that they provide. Hooking up with Red Santa Organization was the best move that I could have made, they provided me with over 20 events that year along with some events that I was able to pick up on my own. This past holiday season, I had over 50 events. Besides Deb Parsons providing me with events and hand-made Santa Suit, Guy Benson who has over 30 years Santa Claus experience including Blue Santa, Austin Trail of Lights Santa along with a host of other Santas has been my mentor throughout the last 3 years. His experience and guidance and mentorship has provided me with an enormous about of guidance that I have used throughout my 3 years of being Santa. I have definitely become a better Santa Claus because of both Deb Parsons and Guy Benson.
I love portraying Santa Claus, it really fits my personality. The joy on the children’s faces really makes it worth my while. However, unfortunately I am not my granddaughters’ Santa since they are at the age where they would probably notice that Santa was their grandfather and we don’t want to ruin that for them.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
It’s been a fairly smooth road so far but the one thing that I have struggled with is learning to improvise with children and unpredictable questions/moments. I am not a fast thinker, I am the type of person who always comes up with the better answer after I have had time to think about it. However portraying Santa, I don’t have the luxury of having a lot of time when a child is sitting on my lap. There are some tough questions that children ask Santa and you always want to provide the “right” answer to them. It is very tough mentally and I have even taken an Improve class to try to help me with these situations. How do you answer a foster child when they ask if they will have a family for Christmas?
The other challenging part is being able to spend the “right” amount of time with each child, especially during busy events. Every child’s interaction with Santa feels important, and sometimes there’s a long line waiting. Balancing the flow of the event while still making each child feel seen, heard, and special is something I’ve worked hard to develop over time but there are times when I felt that I failed a particular child, that I didn’t get to spend as much time with them that I should have. But I always always ask them what they want for Christmas!
It’s the “failed” interactions that I always think about after an event and what I could have done to improve upon it for next time.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
First of all I would like to address what sets me apart from others. There are a lot of great Santa Clauses out there and it would be difficult to pick out something that sets me apart from the other Santas. However I believe to be a great Santa you have to have a genuine love of children and my father has installed that love of children within me. I try to get on their level and understand where they are coming from. The joy that they bring to me is unreal. You can tell a good Santa by they way they interact with the children.
I would not say that I specialize in one area but one area that I am learning more about and gaining a lot of experience is applied behavior analysis (ABA) schools for autism spectrum disorder (ASD). This past holiday season, I visited at least 4 different ABA schools and it was very fulfilling and rewarding but also a challenge that I gladly accepted. I give a lot of credit to the staff of the schools as they also provide a lot of love to their students.
What was your favorite childhood memory?
We had a small field next to our house and all the neighborhood kids would come there to play pickup baseball/softball and my father was always the pitcher and umpire for these pickup games. All the children loved my father and I loved being out there with him. He was absolutely the best and he played organized softball well into his upper 80’s. He was known as the Golden Arm throughout my home town.
Pricing:
- Pricing is different depending upon the event. Factors like the location, the duration of the appearance, and any special requests the host might have affects the price.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://look-its-santa.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/look_its_santa
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/lookitssanta/
- Other: https://www.redsanta.org
Image Credits
Randy Smith
Morgan Sessions
Kelly Kolling-Tapken
