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HOLIDAYS
Santas schooled in child psychology and their ho-ho-ho
BY PATRICIA MONTEMURRI Detroit Free Press

    DETROIT
    Some come for the camaraderie; it’s like a Santa support group.
Some come to learn the basics.
    Consider first-timer Jim Robinson, a retired and rotund band director from Alabama who now lives in Chicago. A friend suggested Robinson consider landing some Santa gigs because he had “the perfect body for it.”
    “And I thought: At last, somebody thinks I’ve got the perfect body,” the 59-year-old said.
    On this autumn day, loud guffaws fi ll Santa House, the fairy tale cottage in downtown Midland, Mich., where Santa greets children every December, and where dozens of stand-in St. Nicks and closet Clauses have gathered for a three-day seminar.
    The space is bursting with holiday cheer and big-bellied men in red and white, possessing easy smiles and flowing white hair.
‘THREE-DAY HUG WITH COOKIES’
    One by one, about 70 students of the Santa mystique introduce themselves at the annual Charles W. Howard Santa Claus School in Midland. It’s named after the man who portrayed Santa in Macy’s New York Thanksgiving Day parade for decades.
    The school’s dean and headmistress are Midland couple Tom and Holly Valent, who’ve portrayed the North Pole’s fi rst couple themselves since the 1970s.
    The annual workshop is like “a three-day hug with cookies,” trilled LuAnn Peterson, 54, of Lindstrom, Minn., and one of several women perfecting their Mrs. Claus character. All are clearly excited and energized.
    “I’m a firm believer that you don’t get selected to be a Santa,” said Leon Mc-Bryde, 66, who was Buttons the Clown for the Ringling Bros. circus and sweats the Santa gig in Miami. “You’re born to be a Santa.”
    The Valents charge $390 for a new student, $350 for returnees. They turn people away, cutting registration off in July for their once-a-year Santa session.
    “It’s a laugh, not what Santa says,” Tom Valent told his students. “Practice your laugh and throw the ho-ho-ho on top of it. If you use it as a noun, it’s not going to work.”
    And how should a Santa respond if confronted by a skeptic? “I’m the spirit of Christmas. I stand for love and giving,” Valent said. “That’s the real answer.”
    Over the course of the three-day seminar, the Santas stage mock TV interviews and take turns boarding a sleigh.
    The Santas take lessons in sign language to be able to wish Merry Christmas to a deaf child. They practice jazz squares in dance lessons designed to make them appear light on their feet, and they are briefed on the differences between a scotch pine and a fraser fir Christmas tree.
    They study beard care. They learn that Yak hair makes the best fake beards and bleaching a natural one softens those wiry white hairs. ..............>>>>................>>>>.................http://www.dailygazette.net/De.....r01401&AppName=1