Filmmaker Unlocks the Secret Lives of Santa

It’s a rite of childhood—troop off to the mall, plop the kids on Santa’s lap and coax a grin for the photo. But how many parents take the time to ask: Whose lap is my child sitting on?

Filmmaker and Haddon Heights native Tommy Avallone spent the past year answering just that question. His documentary in progress, I Am Santa Claus, chronicles the lives of Santa Claus impersonators once the trees are dragged to the curb and the stockings stuffed away.

“I was walking with my wife around the mall and I said, ‘I wonder what lives these Santas go back to. What’s their Dec. 26 like?’” Avallone says of the question that started his quest.

He uncovered an answer both simple and complex. Offseason Santas deal with the same problems we mere mortals do—divorce, workplace politics, even fights on social media. But their Santa passion adds a twist.

“Think of it this way: There’s a whole group of people who do this, and they share this one small interest and it’s being Santa Claus. But they’re all different types of guys,” Avallone says.

“One of our Santa Clauses is gay, one of our guys legally changed his name to Santa Claus, one of them is a Realtor in Los Angeles. We interviewed a guy from Vancouver, WA, who’s a swinger.”

Another Santa uses his seasonal St. Nick job to fight against a rush of bad tidings.

“He lost his house, his wife divorced him, he lost his job and he moved into his daughter’s basement,” Avallone says. “He uses this to get himself out of a sort of depression.”

As Avallone and his crew uncovered the secret lives of Santas, they depended on the generosity of the Kickstarter community. The site allows independent artists to raise money for projects through small donations. I Am Santa began with Kickstarter donations in early 2012; as Avallone prepares to wrap the film and enter it in festivals, he turned once more to Kickstarter for $40,000 to put the finishing touches on the documentary.

The money will fund extras, including stop motion animation reminiscent of 1960s Rankin/Bass Christmas specials, to illustrate parts of the Santas' stories Avallone couldn't film. 

“When Russ loses his house, since we don’t have footage of that, it would be easy to show it in that Christmasy, Santa Claus kind of way with stop motion,” Avallone explains.

The latest Kickstarter for I Am Santa ends July 10—Avallone recently surpassed his goal and donations continue to pop up in support of the documentary.

Who has the right to wear Santa's suit?

Avallone and his crew stretched out the donations as they crossed the country to find Santas who had a story to tell, and found themselves swept into a subculture of men who take Christmas very seriously.

Consider the battle over who’s “real” enough to be Santa. Several years ago, a rift between Santas became a national story when the Amalgamated Order of Real Bearded Santas ousted its president and began an internal battle about its leadership and who’s worthy to wear the red suit.

A splinter group, the Fraternal Order of Real Bearded Santas, formed; Santas took sides; arguments broke out on the now-defunct (and real thing, we promise) Elf Net online message board site. Sniping still continues among the Santa community on Facebook.

But there’s a much more tender side to many Santas, Avallone says.

“They’re grumpy old men, some of them,” he says. “But from the minute your kid’s on their lap, they do what they can to be perfect. It doesn’t matter whether they’re a grumpy old man for the rest of the year.”

And some do embrace Santa year-round. The most well-known Santa in I Am Santa is Mick Foley, professional wrestler and renowned Kris Kringle fan whose basement is a love letter to Christmas all year long. Avallone follows Foley as he learns to become Santa professionally—something Foley took extremely seriously, the filmmaker notes.

Avallone, who now lives in nearby Mount Ephraim, even brought his hometown in on the Santa action. After following the Santas for a year, Avallone needed one final set of interviews.

“We flew them all to Jersey and filmed the last interview at the Haddon Heights library. I have a great relationship with the people at the library and it was nice to bring a piece of this movie there,” says Avallone, who has shot past film footage there as well.

So with a year immersed in all that Santa jolliness, Avallone must be a big fan of Christmas, right? Not exactly.

“I’ll tell you how much I like Christmas—my favorite movie is Die Hard,” Avallone says. “I do have more respect for the holiday after I followed these guys around, but I was never someone like Mick Foley.”

Still, Christmas magic might yet wash over Avallone.

“I was made an honorary member of the International Brotherhood of Real Bearded Santas during filming,” he says. “And now I have an associate’s degree in Santa Claus-ology.”

Tommy Avallone’s I Am Santa Kickstarter fundraising campaign runs through July 10. To read more about the documentary or donate to the project, visit the movie’s Kickstarter page. You’ll go on the nice list, and Mick Foley will put a gift under your metaphorical Christmas tree for any pledge $25 or more.