Playing the part of St. Nick

OKLAHOMA CITY -- Bob Adamson has a twinkle in his eye, a soft, white beard and a belly that shakes like a bowl full of jelly. He grew the beard on purpose, but the tummy, well, that was always there.

Put the 61-year-old in a red velvet suit, black boots and white gloves -- he's the perfect Santa Claus. Kids usually don't have to ask. But if they do, Adamson knows how to make them believe.

"I just tell them, `If you don't think I'm real, pull my beard,'" he said outside his sleigh at Crossroads Mall.

The Blanchard man is one of hundreds who spend Thanksgiving through Christmas sitting in velvet chairs in malls holding kids on their laps. Most fit the part, though some have to bleach their beards or put on a few extra pounds.

Adamson, who retired from the mail room at The Daily Oklahoman, looks like St. Nick even when he's in jeans and a sweat shirt.

When a couple of kids spotted him eating with his wife at a Norman restaurant last month, their mother stopped by the table on her way out to tell him her children "think it's great Santa gets to come out to eat and not even dress up."

Michael Wilson, a Santa in training, is taking cues from Adamson. Make sure everyone can see your hands at all times. Pick up children by their waists. Don't drop them -- even if they're kicking and squirming. And let them come to you.

Wilson thinks he'll do well. Playing Santa is one of his life goals.

"You go through life and there's always something you want to do once," the 57-year-old said. "This is it."

Wilson said people have told him all his life he should be a Santa. Little kids are always whispering to their parents behind his back. At a train station recently, he overheard a boy ask his mother whether Wilson was the real guy. So he tapped the kid on his shoulder.

"I am," he said.

"His eyes got real big," Wilson recalled. "He told me he wanted a toy shark and I told him he should clean his room."

Wilson, who lives in Edmond, is a school bus driver the rest of the year.

He and Adamson don't travel far to play Santa, but many Santas move across the country for the holiday season.

"Big Al" Inman hauled a trailer from Saco, Mont., so he could pose in pictures with children at Penn Square Mall. Inman, a wide Santa with a bushy beard as white as snow, takes time off each year from building knifes and rifles.

There is no Mrs. Claus.

Inman has played St. Nick in Alabama, California and Connecticut. He said he does it because he loves children and he's a natural.

"I've had this beard for 30 years," he said. "The kids all call me Santa back home."

If the children on his knee have to ask if he's real, Inman knows exactly what to say.

"There's only one real Santa Claus and a lot of helpers," he says. "Only the real one knows and the rest of us aren't saying."

Jeff Angelo, who runs a Santa school in Houston, said he trains his students to handle those tricky questions. Santas also have to know what to say when children ask him to bring back their dad or make their parents get back together.

"People look at Santa as being their friend," said Angelo, owner of Sepia Photo Promotions. "A Santa has to have a great heart for the part. They have to have a sincere love for children."

Angelo has almost 50 Santas working throughout the country this month. Some trained in Houston, while others watched the company's video.

They all learned that Santas must have peppermint breath, leather boots with fluffy white trim and natural white beards. No fake beards. And they have to be a little hefty, but it's OK if that part is fake.

"We have fat pads," Angelo said. "We don't promote bad dieting, but we do want them to look natural."

A recent survey showed 52 percent of Santas would prefer a child leave them an apple instead of a cookie.

But Santas still love sweets. Chocolate chip cookies are the favorite of 41 percent of Santas, according to the survey by General Growth Properties, which owns Quail Springs and Sooner malls.

Almost 30 percent of Santas surveyed said children have called them fat. And 94 percent said they do not exercise.

The Santa at Quail Springs Mall admitted he's nodded off while kids were sitting on his lap.

He has to sneak off to buy double espressos a couple times each day so he can stay awake in his stuffy knickers and red suspenders. This Santa, who refuses to tell anyone his real name because he doesn't want to spoil it for the kids, leaves his home in Colorado to live in an Oklahoma motel for a month.

In his five years as a Santa, he has heard thousands of requests for the hottest new toys from excited children. But he has heard heartbreaking stories too. A 7-year-old boy asked Santa to cure his twin of cancer. And an 8-year-old girl said she wanted her parents to stay married.

The Santa prayed with the boy and gave the girl a bell from his sleigh. He asked her to ring it whenever she "got to a place where she didn't think she could make it."

"Remember that Jesus loves you and so does Santa," he told her.

Later, he saw the girl's mother with tears in her eyes. She blew Santa a kiss and mouthed "thank you."

The Santa said it "warms his heart and soul" when he sees a child who believes he is real.

"It's not fair to call this a job," he said. "This is too much fun."

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